Horizon
by JinnySkeans
Summary: She rejects her past, while he runs from his. They leave nothing behind except everything. College AU. SasuSaku, others.
1. Windows and Walls

It's her first day, and she's happy.

Well, maybe not happy. She hasn't been happy in years, but she thinks she might be on the way to happy.

She leaves behind nothing she's not perfectly willing to forget. Some might think her crazy. What Homecoming Queen wouldn't bring her crown along for the ride? What nationally-ranked dance champion would neglect a trophy case the size of most people's houses? What valedictorian would leave her pewter medal on the floor of her bedroom and never look back?

But it's what she does, and watching the little yellow house in her rearview mirror getting smaller and smaller, her past with it, makes her as close to happy as she's been in what feels like centuries.

All that is in the past and for the first time, she feels like she can exhale. The anxiety is still there, of course, but no longer does it weigh on her like a nightmare in her heart. Instead it niggles at the back of her mind, like an old primary school bully biding its time to call her a nasty name and ruin her day.

But time has passed since the day she stopped breathing easy and she won't let the past control her future any longer.

Sakura looks around the sparsely-furnished dorm room and sees nothing but bright, shining hope streaming in through the dusty white blinds like sunlight.

* * *

It's his first day and he is apathetic, but he is apathetic about most things.

He's rooming with his best friend, who is his diametric opposite in terms of personality and emotionality and reality and every other -ality but they're best friends, so the lack of _similarity_ is entirely ignored. They move themselves in, having packed up their lives into a beat-up, black Jetta and everything they know is left behind, with the exception of each other and a few friends scattered here and there around campus.

The room isn't especially big, and his concerns range from 'not enough personal space' to 'my best friend smells like cheese'. But anything is better than the hollow, austere mansion he's left, with rooms emptier than his heart and nothing but silence and time to fill the spaces.

At least they have their own bathroom.

His best friend is loudly optimistic as they move their belongings inside, and not for the first time, he wishes he could share in that optimism. It's not that he has _no_ hope for the next four years of his life. It's that he is a realist. And realistically, it did not do to approach a situation with anything other than cool detachment and clinical calculation. Allowing oneself to hope for anything better, anything grander than the likeliest scenario was a scam catered to fools like his best friend (of whom he has always been jealous.)

Because fools can smile like the world is theirs, and actually mean it.

Sasuke doesn't remember how to smile. He looks around the room they are filling with the ghosts of their pasts and knows it's improbable to hope that will ever change.

* * *

No one comes to move Sakura in, but that's to be expected.

Her family (no longer not anymore never again) is left back home with all the other things she must forget if she is to remember what it's like to smile without fear and love without restraint and hope hope hope for something more than what she knows. They would not have helped her anyway, and the knowledge of this does not sting as much as it used to.

So she wheels her belongings inside a giant laundry cart up the elevator to the coed floor at the tiptiptop of the building. She will sleep alone in Room 432 Hokage Hall. It is her luck to score the only available single dorm in the building but she wishes for a roommate, a sister to share in these most challenging first days.

Still, she makes friends easily, always has. She is confident that she will not be alone for very long.

So she empties the cart quickly. Out pours her life, or at least what remains of her past and what little of it she will carry with her into the future. She makes her bed with a brand-new down comforter, her favorite shade of blue, with satiny sheets because she likes the feel of them on her skin, especially in these scorchingly hot last few days of summer. The pillowcases are the same material and she wishes she'd thought to wash them before because she likes to sleep in comfortable, well-worn fabrics that make her feel safe like she used to be. Still, a few nights in them to break them in and all will be well.

Into the closet, she tucks flannel bedsheets and heavier comforters for when winter comes, because, despite never experiencing a Konoha winter, she knows they are fierce. She kind of looks forward to a proper winter, complete with snow and ice and the prospect of warmth and security in this little room that's now her home.

The bed is set up and she smiles at it before she removes a mini netbook, all she could afford on an ice cream shop girl's salary, and sets it on the desk. The desk is too large for such an absurdly tiny laptop but that's okay, because with premed courses, Sakura knows that soon any available space will be sacrificed to medical textbooks as big as she is and fresh notebooks jampacked with tiny tiny notes about the human body and she can't wait can't can't can't wait to be helpful and useful and necessary.

She has the printer up and running with little to no difficulty because she is smart, has always been smart. Back in Suna, she was valedictorian. Back there, she-

No. No more of that, Sakura. Back then is no more. To these people in this land hours and hours from what she leaves behind her, she is nothing and no one. She will prove herself, she will validate her intelligence, she will not rely on her past accomplishments to prove to anyone who she is or why.

So she hooks up her printer by herself.

Then come her clothes.

Sakura loves clothes. She loves shirts and sweaters and jackets, and skinny jeans most of all. She has skirts and she has dresses floaty like summer and sexy like mistakes. She has everything lace Victoria's Secret ever created and almost twenty bras, size 34B and just exactly right. She places sweaters on hangers and folds T-shirts and each go in their respective places.

And SHOES. Sakura _loves_ shoes. A new pair of shoes is like a shot of adrenaline. On her worst days, she would buy herself a pair of shoes and try for a new outlook.

She has lots of shoes now.

They go in the closet beneath all of her clothes.

Everything she needs is set up, now for everything she wants: a ton of pictures of the friends she's leaving but will miss, they go up on the walls along with posters of old movie stars, far-off places she's never been, and her favorite baseball team.

Now her walls shine with personality. A signed group photo of her high school dance troupe sits neatly on her desk beside her laptop to remind her that dance was her doctor before she decided to become one herself.

Sakura knows her room isn't much. It isn't elegantly furnished like some of the other girls' whose rooms she's glimpsed so far. It isn't full of the latest technology and it isn't all that great.

But it's hers. She's earned it and it's _hers_ and everything about it, down to the last detail, has been paid for and hand-chosen by HER and damn it, she loves this room, she loves it more than she's ever loved anything except dance and books and hope.

But there's still the matter of getting the television out of her car.

* * *

Sasuke's side of the room is set up within the hour.

It is practical.

Practicality is something with which Sasuke has become familiar. He would say that he has mastered the art of it.

"Your side's fucking boring, dude," Naruto snorts.

"Idiot," Sasuke retaliates without missing a beat.

His bed is made with utilitarian black bedsheets and a gray blanket, along with one pillow (he has no need for more.) His closet is stocked with an array of neutral-colored shirts, his jeans folded up in the drawers and his sneakers set up beneath his desk. His Macbook Pro sits on top of his desk next to a printer he has not yet installed. There are no pictures on his walls because they are unnecessary.

The ghosts of his past are emblazoned indelibly on what's left of his heart. Their faces remain forever embossed in his mind.

He does not need them staring back at him from his walls.

Naruto, on the other hand, makes an enormous production of the entire process. He talks and talks and chatters and chatters and it's all mindless but it's the soundtrack to Sasuke's life. He supposed that having Naruto as a best friend is crucial, so he has learned to ignore the majority of what the knucklehead says and really listen to only the important things.

While Sasuke's side of the room is a boring, utilitarian testimony to his aversion to anything fanciful, Naruto's is set up like a circus. Cascades of color, pictures of their old high school friends every which way, clothes strewn about haphazardly like they have lived there for years and not moments. It is a study in contradiction, in the polar extremes of the human psyche, and Sasuke is left to wonder not only how such a clown came to be his best friend, but vice versa.

"We should hit up the cafeteria, man!" Naruto says excitedly as he shoves himself into an oversized Konoha University hoodie. Part of Naruto, he knows, is amazed to be attending college, and having seen his high school test scores, Sasuke certainly understands. But here they are, and he really has nothing better to do.

"Aa," Sasuke replies in a tone that smacks of detachment.

Naruto barely notices. In fact, he has jammed his feet into sneakers and is halfway out the door when a quiet, pretty voice interrupts them.

"Um, excuse me? Hi, I'm Sakura and I'm rooming just down the hall...um, would you guys help me? I can't get my TV out of my car!"

Sasuke looks up at the girl who is talking to Naruto.

Something inside him tells him that this moment will be significant someday. His intuition is sharper, more astute than most so he has since learned to trust it. He wants this time, however, to dismiss it, to scorn his own precognition.

Because besides being the prettiest girl Sasuke has ever seen, she is still just a girl.

And no girl, not even fairy girls with pink hair and eyes like summer and a nervous smile he's never seen, can ever be significant enough to merit his attention.

He ignores the screaming in his head to remember remember remember this moment because it will be important someday.

It is the first day of college at Konoha University. Sasuke does not know what to expect but already things are not going as planned.

The fairy girl's name is Sakura.

He wonders why that matters.

* * *

**note..** Hey there! Another story for you. I believe that you should write what you know (except of course for extreme fantasy) and this will tell you a little bit about what I know and what I'm about. I'm really excited (and nervous) to share this because of how very personal it is. Rating is for adult themes, violence and language and sexuality, all that good stuff. More about that later.

Please let me know how I'm doing, okay? Have a wonderful night.

xoxo Daisy


	2. Dynamic

Sakura is not afraid of the boys down the hall.

Sometimes she fears boys she doesn't know. Her therapist says that that's normal for someone who's been what she's been through, but Sakura knows there is no logic in being intimidated by every single person of the male gender. So she stifles down the need to panicpanicpanic and convinces herself that there is good in the world and she's prolonging her pain by hiding from it.

There is no need, however, to stamp down the fear when she heads down to a door marked "Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha." She hears them arguing and it's kind of funny. One of them is loud and opinionated and reminds her of herself before she forgot what it was like to smile for real. The other is quieter, and his responses are muffled and snarky and remind her of herself now that she has to think about smiling before actually going through with it. They are not intimidating boys and she feels like she can trust them. At least she wants to believe she can.

There's no need to fear them, but she DOES need to bring her television up from the car, and to do that, she needs male assistance.

So she goes to knock on their door but halfway there, it flies open, nearly hits her, and there are two boys standing in front of her and she smiles up at them because that's what you're supposed to do.

"Hi!" the blonde says with a brilliant smile. "What's your name? My name's Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki at your service!"

Naruto. His eyes are friendly, his smile is genuine and his handshake is firm. She typically shies away from a man's touch but there is something _good_ about Naruto, something she trusts without meaning to. He tells her she's pretty and she blushes. Boys tell her she's pretty a lot, and maybe, when she learns to like herself again, she'll believe them.

"Sakura," she replies, smiling in return. "Sakura Haruno. I'm in the single down the hall, nice to meet you."

The boy behind him, who must be Sasuke Uchiha, says nothing. He is handsome, very handsome in an untouchable kind of way, pale where his friend is tanned, with dark eyes and dark hair and a scowl etched onto his face. She is attracted to him immediately, but he is cold and standoffish and regards her like she is inconveniencing him, and she knows she is, but she really needs to hook up her TV because the Phillies are playing tonight.

"Sure we'll help you with your TV, Sakura!" Naruto exclaims. "Right now?"

"Um, if you don't mind," Sakura replies with a smile that doesn't feel so forced. She tucks her side bangs behind her ear in a self-conscious gesture before she faces the good-looking boy in the white V-neck and dark jeans and gray Chucks and says, "I really appreciate it. I'd be stuck without a way to watch the game tonight."

Naruto laughs. "Well if your TV's better than ours, we'll come watch with you!"

"I doubt it would be, my TV's huge and ancient and ugh."

Sasuke replies with, "Hn."

She doesn't know what it means and it certainly isn't a proper word, but his voice is deep and dark and thrilling and it reminds her of things that made her feel safe. He doesn't look happy about having to help out, but he doesn't protest either. Instead, as she and Naruto (asking her a thousand questions about herself because he seems to genuinely want to know her as a friend) head down towards her car, she feels him more than hears him follow.

His presence is smothering and it doesn't make her nervous. Sakura doesn't know why that is.

* * *

The girl is annoying. That much, Sasuke can plainly see.

Naruto is smitten, of course. He likes girls like the girl down the hall. Pretty and vapid, from what Sasuke could tell. Pretty and vapid and fake. Fake like her smiles and fake like that hair that was too girly and fanciful and pink to be real.

His mother would tell him he shouldn't judge someone without really getting to know them.

But his mother is dead, so Sasuke will judge whoever he wants.

She looks like a cheerleader. She looks like an only child. Daddy's little princess. He's seen girls like her, and he doesn't like them because they're spoiled and self-centered and they don't know what it's like to be _alone._ This girl wants help with her TV not because she needs it but because she wants to meet boys.

He wants to snap at her to get her father to help her, but before he can, Naruto asks if she's by herself, and she responds in the affirmative. A little nod and nothing more, nothing to explain why a tiny girl like that is by herself on a day that should be spent with her parents, setting up shop in the dorm room and making tearful, heartfelt goodbyes.

"That's awesome!" Naruto exclaims, even though it's not awesome, and no one should be alone like she is. "Me and the asshole are alone today, too! We can all help each other out! Where ya from, Sakura?"

Sasuke doesn't listen to their conversation as they leave the building and head down to the parking lot. His interest has run out. It's no business of his what the girl does or why she's alone or where she's from. Instead, he shoves his hands in his pockets and wishes he'd opted for something cooler, airier than jeans. It's hot in Konoha.

The girl's TV is enormous. It's old-fashioned. The flatscreen on the wall of his dorm with Naruto is far more practical. He can see why the girl asks them for help, she would snap beneath this monster's weight. He and Naruto manage it without much difficulty, and while the girl holds the doors open for them, they maneuver it into the elevator and back up to the fourth floor.

Her room, when he enters it, is neat and impeccably tidy. She has a lot of clothes and a lot of shoes and a lot of pictures of a lot of friends. He doesn't care about any of that and sets the TV on top of her dresser with Naruto's help.

"Need us to set up the cable for ya?" Naruto asks brightly.

"Oh, no," replies the girl with another (fake) smile. "I know how to do that. Thanks so much for the help, I never would have gotten that thing out of my car!"

"No problem, Sakura!" Naruto high-fives her with enough force to sting her hand, and he doesn't notice her wince. "Hey, me and Sasuke were on our way down to the cafeteria to get lunch, you wanna come?"

Sasuke is annoyed. Because he takes one look at the girl's incredulously happy face and knows her answer before she gives it.

"Sure!"

And Sasuke knows that he will be seeing a lot more of this girl from now on.

And it annoys him. She's _annoying._

He knows her name but she'll be 'the girl' from now on.

* * *

Konoha's campus is beautiful, and it's only been an hour or so but she's already made some friends.

Well, Naruto counts, she supposes. Maybe not Sasuke, who has not yet said a word to her, but that's all right. Sakura doesn't like herself; this quiet boy with too-dark eyes has no reason to either. She tells herself she does not need him to like her, she does not need to be liked by everyone or even anyone for that matter. Because that was old people-pleasing Sakura and that is not who she is anymore.

She has to remind herself that she is a new person now. That she can dye her hair black and cut it off and start wearing leather and get a tattoo and reinvent herself completely. That no one knows who she is here and that no one knows what she's experienced.

But she likes her long pink hair with the eighty layers. And leather chafes and she likes her expansive skinny jeans collection. The tattoo is a definite possibility. She likes side tattoos, the long and windy kind with flowers and vines, the kind she never would have been able to get back in Suna where Daddy was angry and Mommy was drunk and she was the perfectperfectperfect daughter. She knows that it isn't very practical, that someday she will be pregnant and the tattoo will stretch and distort as her stomach grows, but that is a long way off and she wants something impractical and so she will have it.

She supposes it's rude to think on such things while they all head down to the cafeteria for lunch. Naruto is telling her all about himself and he doesn't pause to take a breath. She learns that he's 18, that he and the boy with too-dark eyes went to Oto Senior High School where they both played baseball. She learns that he loves ramen and that he wants to be president someday. He says it with a child's fantasy and a child's optimism, but somehow, some way, Sakura has faith in his childish dream.

He wants to know about her as well, she realizes, as they enter the cafeteria and take a spot in line. The idea is intimidating, because what can she really tell these boys that will make them like her?

Abruptly Sakura catches herself. That's not who she is anymore. She's starting over with a clean slate and so from now on, she will be honest.

"I was valedictorian back at Suna," she reveals. She's left the medal behind to prove it but there's no shame in being a good student. "I'm allergic to sweet potatoes." She hasn't had them in years after a serious allergic reaction that left her hospitalized. "I'm a dancer. Ballet mostly. I'm a premed major. I want to be a pediatrician. I like black and white movies. I'm a huge Phillies fan. I'm 17 and I smoke cigarettes sometimes."

Sakura finds that the more honest she (finally) is, the easier it becomes to speak in the first place. She has never told anyone of her bizarre allergy. Her addiction to old movies is hidden from everyone except her dormitory walls. And the fact that she _smokes?_ _No one_ knows about that.

Maybe they will judge her. Judgment is always difficult for Sakura. She has always striven to be number one perfect best at everything. She has been trained from birth to withstand even severe scrutiny unscathed. But here she is, baring her flaws and her oddities and her quirks and a few of her secrets (the mild secrets, not the ones that wake her in the night and leave her breathless), and it's easy. She doesn't particularly _care_ what they think of her because this is who she is. She is no longer playing the role of perfect daughter. She is presenting herself as she is.

If they like her now, at least, it will be because she's earned it.

Naruto laughs. "You wanna be a doctor but you smoke? That's pretty cool. You're pretty cool, Sakura. Kinda young, though, aren't you?"

"I skipped third grade," she reveals. Another secret, but one you shouldn't be ashamed of, so she isn't.

"Wow, you're smart!"

Sakura watches as he loads up his tray with a large helping of miso-flavored ramen, followed by a massive container of French fries, a large chocolate milkshake, and six packets of Saltines. He must work out considerably hard, then, if he can eat so much and retain such a built physique.

Her anxiety with food is, thankfully, a thing of the past. A constant worry back in Suna, in the little yellow house where no one suspected anything could ever go wrong for pretty Sakura Haruno and her ideal family. A constant concern back where Daddy was mean and Mommy was mean and 98 pounds was fatfatfat and carbs were enemies and so was the mirror.

Since then, however, other anxieties have replaced her preoccupation with calories. She eats healthy now and she eats candy when she wants to and ice cream in bed because she can and Mean Daddy and Mean Mommy have no say over her life, not anymore.

She pops two pieces of wheat bread in the toaster and sets the knob to the highest setting. She likes her toast too-burnt and with margarine and cinnamon on it. She pours herself a bowl of Cheerios and adds chocolate milk instead of white because she doesn't have to hide her quirks anymore. She grabs an apple juice and an orange and when her toast pops up, she smears the margarine on as thick as she wants and applies a light dusting of cinnamon and looks at her lunch that is mostly breakfast and smiles.

They all have a seat at a table in the middle of the room. Naruto is easy to talk to and he doesn't comment on her weird lunch and he tells her more and more things about where he's from and what he likes and who he is. Sasuke is quiet. He doesn't say much at all as he eats a protein bar and drinks a V8. He mostly comments snidely on Naruto's long-winded stories and calls him names, but that seems to be their dynamic, and Sakura is curious about it.

If she and Sasuke ever become friends, what would _their_ dynamic be?

* * *

Sasuke and Naruto know several people here at Konoha University, people from Oto and other schools that have left their lives behind like he and Naruto did. In no time at all, their three-man lunch table is packed with people catching up on their summers and exchanging move-in horror stories and wanting to get to know the girl with pink hair who is sitting with them.

She hits it off right away with a girl he grew up with named Ino. Ino is loud and annoying and overbearing and opinionated and obnoxious. She is talking and laughing with the girl who is talking and laughing right back as they give one another the 411 on their lives.

In fact, the girl hits it off with the whole group. With Kiba, who likes pretty girls like her. With Shikamaru, who likes smart girls like her. With Chouji, who likes sweet girls like her. With Neji and Lee and Tenten, sophomores who hang around with freshmen.

Sasuke knows the girl will become part of their group. He knows she already has.

He has no desire to get to know her better, to tell her about himself. He is here for one purpose and one purpose only. He is here to educate himself, to learn all he can and play baseball as hard as he can and become a success like his family wanted. He has no inclination to waste any time introducing himself to fairy girls with pink hair who want to be doctors.

While the rest of the group all but attack her with questions, he finishes his V8 and tosses his trash in the trashcan.

"I'm heading to the gym," Sasuke reveals to all the inquisitive eyes who look at him wanting to know why he's leaving so soon. Without listening to Naruto's shout of protest, he stalks out of the cafeteria and back into the scorching sunlight.

He changes into his gym clothes in his dorm room, passing by the girl's room to do so. Against his will, he has already made an opinion about her.

She is fake.

She is fake like her smiles. She is pretty and smart and nice but all of that is a cover. A mask. A _lie._

And Sasuke hates a lot of things but he really hates liars.

That girl is a mess. And until she admits it, he sees absolutely no reason why he should acknowledge her existence.

* * *

**note..** Thanks for the kind words of encouragement, I really appreciate it! See you soon!

xoxox Daisy


	3. Panic

Sakura returns to her room that night, her first night, her first night alone in a new city. But not really alone, because Ino's texting her and so is Kiba, and Naruto cheerily tells her good night before heading back to his own room, and she has new friends already and she likes them.

It's only after she shuts the door behind her and locks it for good measure that she remembers she doesn't like herself.

Nights are the worst.

Nights, when she's by herself, no homework to distract her, when her muscles are too tired to dance and the world is quiet and all there's left to do is think, she can't run from her anxiety. It chokes her like an iron hand around her throat. The stomachache she's learned to ignore rushes back with dizzying force and she regrets _so much_. She regrets the pizza she had for dinner at Ino's dorm now that it threatens to make a reappearance all over her plain blue carpet. She regrets thinking she could ever really run from what's behind her, when it's made itself a comfortable home in her heart.

She showers in her private bathroom and uses scented body wash that calms her. Lavender is soothing and helps you sleep, so she massages that into her skin. Hibiscus-scented shampoo and conditioner. Jasmine-scented facial scrub. Sometimes these things relax her, but now is not one of those times.

She steps out of the shower and avoids glancing at herself in the mirror until she's dressed in cotton shorts and an Aerosmith T-shirt. The racing in her heart signals the start of yet another panic attack so she makes sure the bathroom door is shut and locked before she collapses to the linoleum tiles with her fingers clenched through her damp pink hair hard enough to hurt.

Sakura knows her mantras, the things that calm her down when she's like this. _You're safe. You're safe. He's gone. He can't find you anymore. It's all in the past. It's all in the past. The past can't hurt you. You're okay. You're fine. You're safe._

Her mantras work eventually, even if the message is somewhat diluted after so many (hundreds, thousands) times of repeating them to herself. Minutes pass before her breathing relaxes, before the room stops spinning and that icy grip of fear relinquishes hold around her heart, before the tears that stream unbidden from her eyes freeze midway down her cheeks. Then there is silence.

It was foolish of her to assume that a mere change in address would be enough to cure her of the anxiety borne of a night she barely remembers, and a childhood she longs to forget.

Hundreds of miles from the breeding ground of so many of her nightmares, Sakura knows that now, more than ever, she is alone.

And she still isn't safe.

* * *

Sasuke drives his fist once more into the punching bag and relishes the way his muscles burn.

Soccer practice will start next week and he looks forward to the thrill of competition, the physical outlet for so much of his pent-up aggression. But he will not wait for the team to begin training, because Sasuke trains himself. He is disciplined. He adheres to a strict regimen and pushes himself to do and be the best.

It is the Uchiha way. His family may be gone (deaddeadnevercomingback), but their legacy lives on in him. Uchihas do not fail. Uchihas do not quit. Uchihas are the best and he will not stain the honor of the family (that left him all alone) that he loves, so even when he doesn't need to, he pushes himself.

Three hours into the workout, he feels the familiar stitch in his side that signals he's gone too far this time. But he ignores it and wipes down the weight machine that's now soaked in his sweat and stalks towards the punching bag, the only thing in the entire Hokage gym that he hasn't yet tested out.

He pictures his enemies as he rains a volley of punches against the sandbag. He isn't sure who those enemies are anymore. Everyone he's ever wanted revenge against for his family's sake is long gone, but the throb of anger and hate still burns within him. Perhaps not as fiery hot and volatile as it was before, so close to the surface and guiding all of his actions, but simmering, he thinks, would be the right way to describe it. Dormant unless provoked, then unleashed like a tiger until he can't go anymore and exhaustion wins the fight and claims him.

Sasuke is competing for midfielder, and he trains like a mercenary.

Everyone else in the gym is gone, and it's just him now. It's the first night at college; everyone is preoccupied with the getting-to-know-you parties and making new friends and writing home. But Sasuke hates parties and he doesn't need anymore friends and no one is home to read the letters he won't write. The only sounds in the entire gym are his own ragged breaths and the creaking of the chain that holds the punching bag as it swings to and fro.

It's a good gym, he decides, content that his sweat and blood but never his tears are smeared across each piece of equipment in some measure. His muscles ache now. Rock hard and beneath alabaster skin like satin over steel, they are the product of his efforts, but Sasuke does not work out for the musculature. He does not care what he looks like.

He pushes himself forward. The goal is to never look back. The goal is to strain and strain and work and train and strive and try and do until all that's left is his future.

That's the goal anyway.

Somehow no matter how hard he tries to look forward, he can't help but turn back.

Till then, though, he trains. He isn't sure what he's training for, but maybe someday he'll figure it out.

* * *

Sakura sleeps easily after the attack has passed.

There are a lot of people here at Konoha University and so it's always a little noisy. Not everyone's sleeping yet and that suits Sakura fine. Noise means people means she isn't as alone as she feels. That means no more silent nights spent wide awake dreading the sound of Daddy's shouts or Mommy's cries or worse. There is nothing like that here. Nothing but a bunch of young, stupid people just like her looking to make something of themselves. Sakura sleeps fine.

She wakes early. She is not a morning person but it's hard not to be excited by the prospect of her first day of classes. She showers again just to while away the time and is meticulous with her appearance. She blows her hair dry and pulls it straight with a ceramic flatiron. She dresses in a pair of white shorts with a sand-colored tank top and brown strappy gladiator sandals she found at half price. Her makeup is minimal and sophisticated, a dusting of pink eyeshadow to bring out the green of her eyes, a dark liner on the top lid and then the bottom before a smear of mascara that elongates her thick eyelashes.

Sakura checks her backpack. Inside she has empty notebooks and binders, pens and pencils and a calculator and everything except textbooks, which she hasn't bought yet from the bookstore, since her professors advised her to wait until the second day of class to make any purchases. She double checks her schedule and sees that her first class is a psychology lecture at 9:15 across campus, which gives her an hour to kill, so she decides to get breakfast beforehand.

She slides on her sunglasses and smiles at her reflection and sets out the door determined to _try._

* * *

Sasuke sits in the very back row of the lecture hall.

He is the only one in the room so far because he is early which means he is on time. His father taught him that. Punctuality has been drilled into him until he is little more than an automaton, one devoid of personality and opinion, one that always shows up before everyone else and readier than everyone else.

The lecture hall is large and soon, he knows, it will be full of students. He does not like Psychology but it's a prerequisite for his major, which is annoying. He does not care about why criminals commit crimes or Daddy-never-hugged-me or any of that. Becoming a lawyer is not about the desire to rehabilitate, at least not for him.

But he still needs the credits.

They file in soon after that. One by one, skittish and alone on this first day of class, or huddled in loud, talkative groups. Sasuke ignores the frequent stares he receives by girls, the giggles and flirty sighs. He keeps his fingers laced on top of the swing-out desktop and peers over them at the front of the room, where the professor has not yet arrived.

He sees the girl there, by herself and weighed down by a backpack that looks bigger than she is. His eyes watch her as she looks to the left and right, trying to find a seat. Briefly she glimpses him and she spares him a small (fake) smile, but makes no attempt to approach him.

Apparently she recognizes that just because she is friends with Naruto doesn't mean she is friends with Sasuke. Smart of her.

He tries not to think of her, but fails. She picks a seat in the middle of the room where he has a view of the back of her head, and he stares at long, pin-straight pink hair that tumbles down the back of her chair. Silly color. Silly girl.

He is not alone in noticing the girl. Different guys around her notice her, too, and Sasuke knows they are not watching her to scorn her fanciful hair color. Eyes follow her every movement as she sets down her backpack and removes a notebook and a number 2 pencil. The old-fashioned wooden kind that requires sharpening.

So far, Sasuke has made several assumptions about the girl and all of them have been wrong. He took one look at her fairy tale princess appearance and decided she must have a fairy tale life, complete with the loving mother and father and all the spoils of a wealthy, privileged lifestyle. But no parents accompanied her to help settle her in. Everything she owns is secondhand or cheap. Everything she _is_ is something Sasuke can't begin to understand.

Thinking about it is annoying.

The professor is late and his excuse is pathetic ("I got lost on the way to the lecture hall") and Sasuke thinks even less of Psychology than he had before.

His first day of classes is off to a lame start.

Business as usual.

* * *

**note..** Couple PMs asking me why this is rated 'M' if it's got a tame beginning. Easy: because it's just the beginning. Hahaha give me a chance to set up a plot and some characters and a back story, why don'tcha. If you're looking for mindless porn you're not going to find it here, sorry. Thanks for the reviews and favorites and alerts and reading this in general, I appreciate it!

Have a good night, you guys! Phillies play Arizona tonight (hopefully they can stop sucking and go back to being my winningest team.) Love youuuu xoxo Daisy


	4. Shift

It's the weekend now.

Sakura doesn't really know what comes next. She is done all of her homework and texts from Ino and her roommate Karin command her to 'get ready', but she's not sure for what. So she showers and invites the girls up to her room, the coveted single.

Ino and Karin are in varying states of preparation for a night of things Sakura does not yet know. Ino scavenges her wardrobe, thrilled to find that Sakura is only a size smaller than she is, which means she can share most of her clothes, and Karin demands to borrow a jewel-studded pair of peep-toe sandals.

These are her friends.

"We're going to a party at the Theta house," Ino explains, and Sakura hides the naked panic on her face by shaking scrunching mousse into her hair. "Kiba's pledging there and he invited us to come check it out. Should be fun!"

A frat party.

Sakura tries to calm her racing heart as she sprays a long, wild mess of curls with volumizing hairspray. There's nothing to fear as long as she's careful, right?

Sakura hates her past for making her the way she is today. She hates looking back and reminding herself that monsters are real, and she can't really trust anyone. It's a party, nothing more than that. As long as she keeps her wits about her and her friends close, nothing can happen to her.

Right?

* * *

Sasuke doesn't go to the party.

The fraternity who's hosting it has been on his dick all week about pledging, but he would rather stick forks in his eyes than accept. His father and brother were both members before him, but this can be one Uchiha tradition he completely ignores.

Naruto and Kiba and the others leave for a night of debauchery and give him shit for not going himself, but Sasuke would much rather go to the gym and get a decent workout in. Tryouts are next week after all.

So he finds himself in the gym, alone, because no one's working out on a Friday night.

He makes the circuit slowly, with purpose, and he is aggressive, more so than usual. He does not allow himself a moment's reprieve, and forbids himself from approaching the water fountain, because to admit he is thirsty is to admit weakness.

If there is one thing that is never tolerated in the Uchiha family, it is weakness.

And being the last one, it is his duty to ensure that he is never weak, never once.

It is the Uchiha's most absolute rule.

* * *

The party is wild but not much more so than parties she's been to back in Suna.

She walks in and is immediately handed a beer, which she drinks because it's in a can and unopened which means it hasn't been tampered with. It is a Budweiser, but Sakura's favorite is Yuengling. Lager is smoother going down. Her preference for the more masculine beer is something that she keeps to herself.

Ino and Karin, both clad in clothes they swiped from her closet, express their envy that she is able to have so many, many clothes and shoes and pretty things. They do not know her well enough yet, they do not know that her clothes are not brand name, high end; she buys cheap things at discounts and she makes them look pretty because Sakura supports herself.

Sakura has supported herself on an ice cream shop girl's salary for the last two years.

Again, they don't know her well enough to know that yet. She'll tell them eventually, when she is no longer hampered by the weight of the world and the agony of her past and the uncertainty of her future.

But she is glad to have friends who like her (or at least, like her sense of fashion) enough to come to a party with her and make the rounds and giggle and flirt and dance like they've known each other for years.

Boys come up to her and they want her number and they want to dance with her and they want to tell her she's hot. Sakura experiences the same old gnawing anxiety, but it is diminished considerably in the presence of her girlfriends; she enjoys a sense of safety, of camaraderie, of sisterhood, because when she is dancing with Ino and Karin, she is not alone.

And maybe solitude was never the solution.

* * *

Sasuke showers and collapses on his bed at 2:14 am. His hair is still damp and he remembers his mother's voice chiding him for ruining her good pillowcases with water stains. He does not dwell on the fact that he recalls not the scolding, but the loving way she used to look at him as she did so. He has not allowed himself a single moment to miss his mother, but that is one thing that Uchiha Discipline cannot control: he misses her every day, in a million ways.

The room is quiet without Naruto's incessant chatter to fill it, without Kiba and Shikamaru setting up camp on the floor to watch ballgames on his flat screen, without the clink of beer bottles and the arguments full of swearing and the knockknockknock on the door of fanatic females wanting to get to know him in the biblical sense.

He likes it.

Not that he doesn't like his friends, per se, because he does, in his own detached manner. But Sasuke also likes his solitude.

He's trained to like his solitude.

Sasuke rolls onto his side, faces the wall, and shuts his eyes to sleep, before his phone buzzes and he reads a drunk text from Naruto demanding to be escorted home.

It is the last thing he wants to do. He curses Naruto's name straight to hell a few times, but Sasuke, regardless of the image he presents, is first and foremost a loyal friend; his muscles scream in protest as he pushes himself out of bed and he ignores them. He slides a jacket on over his T-short and shoves his feet into sneakers before stalking miserably out of his dorm room, down the stairs, and across campus to the Theta house.

On the way, he passes Ino and her ginger roommate and the girl. They are drunk and stumbling and laughing, and subconsciously he notes that it is the first time he has seen the girl with her guard down. He glances at her and sees that her hair is wild and curly and her eyes are greengreengreen and bleary and her little dress is rumpled and she carries her heels in her hand because she has no sense of balance anymore, but even in her drunkenness, she has a certain grace and athleticism he's only ever seen in ballerinas. But beyond all that, he sees that her smile, wide and silly and without a hint of pretentiousness, is genuine.

Sasuke notes that there are parts of the girl that are not fake at all.

He wonders why he wants to know what they are.

* * *

Saturday morning and Sakura finds herself on the floor of her bedroom. She panics for a moment, only a moment, before she sees that Ino has taken over her bed and Karin is lying on the floor beside her, facedown and loudly snoring with her glasses thrown against the wall. She calms down and even smiles. These are her friends.

Her head hurts. She had a lot to drink last night so that's to be expected. Her hair is stiff with product since she fell asleep without washing it out, and she tastes beer because she forgot to brush her teeth in her drunkenness. She groans and sits up and looks at her face in the mirror to find that her mascara has run, her eyeliner has smeared, and her lipstick has dried out her lips and now they're chapped.

She is a mess, but she is also close-to-happy.

No panic attacks last night.

* * *

Sasuke sleeps in without meaning to.

When he wakes up, he heads down to the cafeteria and grabs breakfast and sits at the only available empty table alone with a book open in front of him. He does this to ward off any asshole girls who feel the need to approach him, and sometimes it works.

Now is not one of those times, it seems, because no sooner does he crack the book open than a soft, pretty, feminine voice interrupts him.

"Uh, hey, Sasuke. Do you mind?"

Sasuke turns up, glaring, and is surprised to see the girl in front of him. She is freshly showered and her hair is wavy and natural-looking. There is makeup on her face, less than usual, but enough to make him wonder what she looks like without any. She is wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts and holding a bowl of cereal and a Psychology textbook.

He minds.

But he says nothing, responds in no way, which the girl takes to mean yes she can have a seat. To her credit, she does not sit beside him, nor does she speak to him. She sits opposite him and opens her textbook and attacks it with a highlighter.

She is like him, and studies first thing in the morning on the weekends.

They pass the entire breakfast in silence, as he returns his attention to the econ text in front of him and when he finishes his breakfast and looks up, the girl is gone.

* * *

Sakura is not sure how she feels about Sasuke.

She ponders his significance to her as she leaves the silent breakfast for the library.

She doesn't dislike him, but she doesn't particularly like him either. He is always there when she and the others hang out, distant and detached, but she doesn't pay too much attention to him. She feels slightly exposed when he looks at her, like his dark eyes can see directly through the picture perfect facade she has been constructing around herself, and the thought unnerves her.

Besides that, though, he isn't very nice but he isn't cruel. Cold and standoffish, and she can see why some might find him intimidating, with his height and his musculature and his dark, dark eyes, but she doesn't feel threatened by him the way she does with guys she doesn't know very well.

Maybe it's because he's such good friends with Naruto. Naruto wouldn't have an evil best friend.

Or maybe it's because she has a sneaking suspicion that Sasuke can see her. He can see Sakura the way she is, not the way she plays to be. He can see right through the perfectly-applied makeup and the Hollywood smile and the witty remarks she makes that make everyone like her and want to be around her. He can see who she is on the inside, the shitshow, the mess, the insecure little freak who Mommy and Daddy don't love never loved can't love because she may be unlovable.

Sakura, against her will, wants to know just what it is he sees.

Because she has not been able to see herself in years.

**note..** Um, STILL getting PMs on the rating. Like, a lot of them. Hahaha come on guys. This is a long story and I'm trying to focus on Sasuke and Sakura's emotional relationship first; each of them have fucked-up pasts and I wanted to explore that more in this story, not have them meet and fuck and that's all you want? Not how I roll, y'all. There's such a thing as plot development and character evolution and what have you.

Thank you so much for the interest in this story. Now give me a chance to write it! Hahaha love you, you demanding public, you. Tell me what you think!


	5. Honesty

Sunday morning, Sasuke is doing homework and so, surprisingly, is Naruto.

The atmosphere in their dorm room is completely changed. They sit at their desks, back to back, crouching over their respective assignments: Sasuke is scribbling Psychology notes in very small, very tidy, very Uchiha handwriting while Naruto grumbles over an English assignment. The quiet is interrupted by Naruto's frequent swears, the drag of an eraser across his paper, the irritated taptaptap of a pencil on the desk that threatens to drive Sasuke completely insane.

Finally, Naruto throws the pencil against the wall and grabs his phone.

"It's no use!" he snaps. "I don't understand this shit!"

"Tch," Sasuke scoffs without looking up. He listens halfheartedly as Naruto dials someone's number, the phone rings twice, and then he says brightly, "Hiya, Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke stiffens marginally. He hasn't seen the girl since breakfast the day before, but to say he hasn't thought about her would be a lie. She has been making frequent appearances in his mind with her fakefake smiles and her stupid shiny green eyes. She is _annoying_ and he doesn't even know a single thing about her. Besides her stupid food choices and her decision to root for the most obnoxious team in baseball, that is.

"What are you up to?" Naruto asks Sakura.

Sasuke pretends he isn't listening as he continues to write. It is no business of his what Naruto wants from the girl. He sighs in a long-suffering type of way and thinks that his friend is an idiot to associate with fakefake girls like _the _girl.

"Studying? Oh, sweet, me, too. D'you mind if me and Sasuke come over to your room? I could really use some help on this English."

Sasuke's head swivels around and he glares at Naruto, who smiles cheekily in return, like he knows some deep dark secret about someone and won't tell.

"Great! Thanks, Sakura-chan, you're the best!" Naruto hangs up and grabs Sasuke's arm. "Let's go, asshole, we're studying at Sakura-chan's!"

xoxoxo

Sakura has a strict study regimen she adheres to. She puts her schoolwork first and always has.

Sundays are devoted to studying. She is premed, which means that most of her free time is locked up with work, even in this, her first week of college. She knows it will only get more and more stressful and time-consuming from here on out, so she figures that she might as well prepare herself early, and establish a schedule she won't stray from.

Naruto's desperate cry for help is not entirely surprising (he is not the sharpest tool in the shed), but Sasuke coming over with him is. She ponders that as she unlocks the door to let them in. Sasuke is not overly hostile to her, but he has displayed absolutely no desire to want to get to know her better.

Sharing breakfast with her was a fluke. It wasn't like they'd spoken to one another anyway, and she was gone before he even looked up.

She wants to get to know him better, even if it's only one-sided. Sasuke is the kind of boy she needs to be careful around because he's the kind of boy she could end up loving. He's dangerous that way.

Still, though, she wants to know who he is. He has the same haunted look in his eyes that she does, that hollowness that tells anyone who's looking for the right cues that here is a person who's been through hell and back. Here is a person who has left parts of their heart and soul and existence scattered around the world with no way to find them again. Here is a person who needs help but won't, _can't_ ask for it.

She can see that whenever she looks up into his deep, dark black eyes. She wonders what he's been through.

But in the meantime, she greets them both at the door with a smile and ushers them inside. Naruto settles himself on her bed and pats the space next to him, which she takes. Sasuke sits quietly at her desk and opens his book and says nothing as he begins to read.

Sakura begins a lecture on ethos, pathos, and logos, and what might have been an awkward atmosphere is anything but. If anything, it feels as natural and effortless as breathing, what with Naruto's incessant chatter and Sasuke's quiet but calming presence and her genuine laughter filling the spaces in between.

She doesn't know when she starts thinking of the boys as _hers,_ but she does.

Her boys.

xoxoxo

Hours pass, and the girl orders a pizza.

She flicks on the television, and when Sasuke shoots her a scandalized look (this is _study_ time), she shrugs sheepishly.

"We need a break," she says, and technically, Sasuke can't bitch her out because this _is_ her dorm room, so he is forced to shut his book (maybe he did need a break) and he turns to face the beat-up old television that's currently playing a black-and-white movie with actors he's never seen before.

Against his will, he is learning things about the girl. That she likes older movies, that she sits with one leg curled beneath her and the other extended perfectly straight. That she has a habit of tucking her bangs behind her left ear and she doesn't like silence, since whenever there's a quiet moment, she asks a question or makes a comment or just giggles.

Sasuke doesn't care enough to wonder why that is.

"This sucks, Sakura-chan," Naruto whines. "Let's watch something else. I'll call the others!"

And they show up, and in droves. Soon the girl's spacious single is packed to bursting with people: Ino, a girl he knew from school, and her loudmouth ginger roommate Karin; Kiba, Shikamaru, and Sai, who are staying in the three-man suite on the second floor; Neji and Tenten, sophomores who hang out with freshmen. The movie on the TV changes to an action comedy everyone can agree on, and Sasuke is annoyed.

He is annoyed because he knows that Movie Nights at the girl's place are going to become a tradition.

He is annoyed because the girl has already inserted herself into every facet of his life.

He is annoyed because he knows that she didn't even have to try.

xoxoxo

Sasuke falls asleep in his chair, and Sakura doesn't know what to do about it.

Everyone else has left already, snickering at Sasuke's misfortune, even Naruto. So now it is just her and him and she is confused and he is sleeping, arms folded on the desk, head resting on top of it, shoulders rising and falling in time to his breaths and what is she supposed to do now?

He is much less intimidating when he's sleeping, she notes. Maybe it's because his eyes are closed and when his eyes are closed, they can't see straight through her, right to all the ugly bits she tries so hard to hide. His scowl is erased in slumber, his face smooth and young and Sakura battles a blush that rises fiercely to her face.

He can't sleep all night there, she tells herself. It's uncomfortable-looking, and they aren't exactly friends. Floating in the same social circle doesn't make them friends. Sharing breakfast at the same table doesn't either.

But Sakura feels safe around Sasuke. She isn't sure why. He's never acted particularly protective towards her. Hell, he's never even _spoken_ to her. She's reasonably certain he hates her, even. But she can't help the way she feels, and when Sasuke's in her room, unwillingly, but still there, she feels like the grip around her lungs is just the tiniest bit looser.

Sakura isn't about to chase away the things that anchor her to herself, and if a sleeping Sasuke is one of them, then as far as she's concerned, he can sleep on her desk every night for the rest of college.

With that mindset, she washes her face and brushes her teeth and drapes a sheet around his shoulders and climbs into bed and falls asleep.

No nightmares.

xoxoxo

Sasuke wakes up the next morning to an unfamiliar alarm clock.

He opens his eyes and realizes his entire body is sore. His shoulders ache like he's been lifting for hours. His back is stiff, so is his neck. One side of his face is numb from laying on a flat surface. It takes him a minute to realize that not only is he not in his room, but he's in the girl's.

Instantly he is pissed off. A blanket he doesn't remember covering himself with falls to the floor as he rises sharply to his feet, and, ignoring the head rush, he looks around for her to yell at her for letting him sleep in her room.

She's sitting on the floor facing the mirror on the door. She is painting something pink on her lips and seems to be in the final stages of getting-ready-for-the-day, if her perfect pink curls and flawless outfit are any indication. Green eyes heavily accented by expertly-applied cosmetics meet his in the mirror, and a small but sincere smile lifts her perfect pink lips.

"Good morning," she says softly.

"Why'd you let me sleep here," he grumbles at her. He is angry and she is fake and he doesn't understand her and he doesn't want to ever. He rubs at a crick in his neck and hates her a little bit more for her lack of interference.

"I didn't want to wake you," she replies. Her voice is quiet, and it's honest. He begrudgingly respects her a little bit more, because he never thought she had it in her to be truthful.

"Annoying," Sasuke snaps. He doesn't care if he hurts her feelings because she's confusing anyway. He has a lecture in twenty minutes and he's messy and unprepared and it's _her_ fault. This five-foot-nothing little shrimp of a girl, all pretty and distracting, is making his life as difficult as she can and, what's more, he knows that it's unintentional on her part. Against his will, her will, too, she is becoming more and more relevant to him, and it's only been a few days.

She _is_ annoying. So annoying because Sasuke knows what will happen next. It's been barely a week, and already Sasuke knows more about this girl than he knows about half the kids he grew up with. He retains stupid shit about her without meaning to, and he thinks about her when she isn't there. She annoys the hell out of him, because he is already so aware of her and he hates liars, and this girl is a liar.

She is a spectacular shitshow and a hot mess and why can't she just admit that? Why does she hide behind her perfection when perfection is a lie and liars should be hated? What is she trying to leave behind her?

"You hate me," she says softly. It is not said with any anger or animosity. In fact, Sasuke is surprised to detect a note of resignation, as if his hatred of her is a conclusion so inevitable, it has occurred to her as well. As if she expected his hatred. As if she expects everyone's.

And it makes so little sense to him, he blurts out, "Who are you?"

The question is as dense and loaded as they come. She knows he knows her name. It's more than just an introduction. Sasuke wants to know who she is beneath the makeup and the fake smiles and the pretty eyes. She makes no sense, and if he hates one thing more than a lie, it's a mystery.

She doesn't answer for awhile. There is silence between them in the dorm, silence so thick and so loud that Sasuke almost wants to leave so he can breathe again. It isn't easy to breathe right around the girl. But he doesn't leave because no way will a little girl like this beat him at anything, even if it is just a staring contest.

She stands up and shakes her curls out and they fall like water down her back. He is annoyed that she is so put together while he is so ruffled and frazzled and angry; he is annoyed that she accepts his animosity with grace, when he really wants her composure to break, when he really wants to see her get mad like she's making him. When he really wants to see a shred of honest emotion flashing in her serene, haunting eyes.

Then she looks at him and her smile isn't real.

"I'm Haruno Sakura," she murmurs. "I'm sorry you hate me. But I don't blame you for it."

Sasuke watches as she gathers a brown messenger bag full of books, slips it on over her shoulder, and slides past him out of her room. The door shuts quietly behind her. Sasuke stands alone in her room and the deafening silence returns full force.

No running from it now.

xoxoxo

Sakura barely makes it out in time.

She has a lecture in a half hour but that's the last thing on her mind. Instead, the air is humid when she all but runs outside, thick and the dark sky promises rain. She feels a panic attack coming on and knows she can't let anyone see it. Least of all Sasuke, let he hate her even more than he already does, even more than she hates herself. She finds a secluded corner behind a wilting cherry blossom tree, and her bag falls to the ground and then she falls after it.

Her knees slam into the dirt, tiny rocks embedded in her skin, but she barely notices the pain. She wraps her arms around herself as tight as possible and tries for the mantras that battle away the agonizing tightness. _You're okay. It's okay. He can't find you. He can't hurt you. You're okay. It's okay. It's going to be okay._

They don't work this time. How can anything be okay, when she has evidence? Evidence that those who aren't fooled by her facade, that those, like Sasuke, who can see right through her, hate her as much as she fears they would?

She looked into his eyes that morning and saw nothing but anger, nothing but contempt. Sasuke, she knows, can see her. He can see her for who she is rather than who she wishes to be, who she convinces everyone that she is. And seeing that, he hates her. The hatred in his eyes was honest, unhidden, inescapable and undeniable.

It's the worst attack she's had in a long while, and it's getting worse. Not twelve hours ago, Sakura fell asleep with the security that Sasuke was with her. A night free of nightmares, a night spent sleeping soundly, without waking in a cold sweat and glancing at the window to make sure it was locked. A night spent without wondering when the monsters from her past would find her.

Now, however, Sasuke is no longer the silent, brooding guardian she never knew she wanted him to be. Now he is the judge, the accuser whose perfect eyes miss nothing about her, the arbitrator who has weighed her and found her wanting.

And there is nothing she can do to refute his condemnation because she is a _liar._ A mess and a faker and a liar and dirty and used and ugly and gross and every other horrible thing she can think of.

Her heart races. It's like thunder in her chest, and getting so fast she's afraid she might go into cardiac arrest if it continues. She can't breathe, the quick short breaths she draws in are useless. Sweat explodes on her forehead and the world is spinning and then the dry, ugly brown grass is rushing up to meet her.

Then there is nothing.

Sakura misses her first period lecture.

xoxoxo

**note..** Panic attacks are no fucking joke, yo.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think. I know it's slow-moving but that's my style. True love don't happen overnight, yafeelme. (But it did for me with all you guys and I fucking love you.)


	6. Damaged

Sakura comes to a few minutes later.

It isn't the first time she's passed out, but that doesn't make it any less scary.

No one's seen her, it seems. She hasn't been gone long enough to be missed, which suits her fine. The last thing she needs is Ino or Karin or Naruto or any of the others (she pointedly excludes Sasuke) to find her knocked out on the dusty old grass behind the cherry blossom tree in the middle of the quad. Still, she ignores the screaming in her heart for someone, anyone to save her from this daily prison that seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and with a strength she doesn't quite believe is hers, she stands up and dusts off her knees and her clothes and shoulders her messenger bag and returns to her dorm room.

Sasuke is gone. That doesn't surprise her. But his presence lingers in the room, the heady scent of his cologne, an aroma she doesn't want to admit is attractive to her. He's forgotten his sweatshirt as well.

She drafts an email to her professor to excuse her absence. A touch of the stomach flu and can I please have the lecture notes thank you very much. Just another lie to add to her collection. She doesn't even feel guilty about it anymore, not when lying is as essential as breathing if it means keeping up her disguise of a normal girl with a normal life. And Sakura will take her secret to the fucking _grave_ if she can get away with it.

She feels dizzy still, and she must have hit her head on the way down, because there is a shallow cut on her temple. She cleans it with antiseptic and does the same thing to her knees, wiping the blood off the sink when she's through. She rearranges her bangs so they hide the pink slash and changes out of her chic outfit into a pair of sweatpants that hide the cuts on her knees.

She doesn't have another class until nighttime, a Calculus class across campus, so she decides to skip lunch and go back to bed.

She checks that her door is locked and, without thinking too much about it, she grabs Sasuke's sweatshirt from off the floor and has it pulled over her body before she can change her mind. It drowns her in it, smothers her with that strange, mysterious _safety_ she always feels when he's around, and her breathing relaxes a little more. The ache in her head isn't so unbearable and, as she curls up underneath her blankets, she falls asleep feeling more secure than she has any right to feel.

It's only ten AM.

The fatalist in Sakura reminds her that there's still so, so much time left in the day for things to get even worse. But the optimist in Sakura, who's feeling particularly cheerful wrapped up in the scent and warmth of , tells her to shut up and get some sleep and go to Calculus later on with a clear head.

Change has to start somewhere. She curls up in Sasuke's sweatshirt and prays for the eightieth time that it will start here.

xoxoxo

Sasuke was right about Movie Nights.

Tuesday night is another one. It begins with Naruto needing homework help from the girl and dragging him along. If the girl is affected by their earlier spat (if you could call it that) she doesn't reference it. Instead she smiles at him, cautiously but sincerely, as if she sees the senselessness in trying to be anything but honest with him when it comes to smiles, and she welcomes him inside with Naruto.

His sweatshirt is freshly laundered and smells like her, which would be annoying if she didn't smell so good.

They get a decent amount of homework done (the girl is knowledgeable about a lot of things including Accounting equations, which helps him out more than he will admit aloud) before Naruto gets bored with homework and then everyone comes in to scarf down pizza and watch movies and talk shit and flirt and fight.

To his surprise, the girl, who is normally so upbeat and happy-go-lucky around everyone, is quiet and reserved. He hasn't seen her since falling asleep in her room and yelling at her afterward, but she looks rundown. Her makeup is minimal, subdued, still too much for his liking since he doesn't know what she looks like, not for real, and her hair, normally so shiny and bouncy and shampoo-commercial-quality, is straight and somewhat limp.

"I'm gonna get a workout in," she announces suddenly, and Sasuke thinks he is the only one who hears her. The others are too busy laughing at whatever shenanigans are taking place onscreen, and no one (but him) notices the way she grabs her brown leather jacket, pulls it securely around herself, and leaves the other idiots alone in her room.

Sasuke isn't sure what prompts him to stand up as well.

Maybe it's because he hates Seth Rogen, who is currently being fat and awful and unfunny on the beat-up old television balanced precariously on the girl's dresser.

Maybe it's because he lives with Naruto and, frankly, endures way too much of his friend for sanity.

Or maybe it's because he sees sadness in the girl's eyes, a brutal, painful, and _honest_ sadness that makes him think she might be about to put her armor down.

Whatever it is, he slips out after the girl, hands shoved in his pockets, and when the door closes behind him, he doesn't see the raised eyebrows and curious stares left in his wake.

xoxoxo

Sakura changes in the locker room. She hides herself in one of the shower stalls, careful to keep her clothes off of the wet tile floor, and peels off layer by layer before donning cotton shorts and a gray T-shirt. Her pink hair is piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail, her bangs pinned back off her forehead. She slides on a pair of beat-up old running shoes Ino's been bitching at her to throw away already and she tucks her belongings in a locker.

The gym is busy, which is good. Because when Sakura likes to be alone, she likes to be alone in a large group of people. Anonymity is more than achievable in a crowd, and on top of the pleasant solitude, she can also enjoy the comfort and safety of being around others. No one can hurt you with everyone watching, right?

So she chooses a treadmill in the middle of the gym with an empty one on either side of her, a buffer zone and a courtesy to the other gym patrons. She takes a few steps on the idle treadmill to get it started, then chooses the most ruthless uphill workout the damn thing offers.

Sakura is not in a mood to entertain her friends tonight. She isn't sure why. She thinks she didn't fully recover from the scary panic attack the day before, and a distraction is in order. Nothing like a grueling, punishing workout to make you so tired, you don't have the energy to contemplate all the ways your life is falling apart, and all the ways you are powerless to stop it.

She runs and runs and pumps her legs until her thighs burn, and then she pumps them harder. She is sweating in no time but it is a cathartic experience, as though the bad vibes and skittish feelings and sulky mood are being purged along with everything else. Her ponytail flips back and forth in a pendulum motion as she pumps her arms in time to her quick strides; the stitch in her side is painful, but at least she can feel something besides anxiety. She can control this, she can work with this.

Running is something she's always been very good at.

xoxoxo

Sasuke watches her run.

He still doesn't know why she is so significant to him, why everything she does affects him somehow. But slowly the pieces are being put together, not enough to see the whole picture, but it's becoming clearer and clearer to him.

At the very least, he sees that they are more alike than he thought.

He recognizes the strain in her muscles, the determination on her face. He recognizes the shallow breaths that betray her exhaustion, but the fire in her eyes that says she isn't going to give up until she collapses. He recognizes all of the things that are in him as well, and sees that this girl is not running just to run; she is running _from_ something, and maybe, like him, trying to find something to run _towards._

He wonders if she's found it. He wonders if she ever will.

And Sasuke wonders _why_ he wonders. This girl, whom he's known for little more than a week, takes up so very much of his time and attention. He doesn't know how she's managed that when every girl back at his high school devoted their lives to getting his attention with absolutely no success. She applied no effort and now he can't shake her out of his head.

He moves purposefully towards the treadmill she's running on, his strides calm, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She doesn't notice him until he's right beside her, and she looks surprised.

"Sasuke? What are you doing here?"

"You're annoying," he informs her.

Her eyes flash with anger, and seeing such honest emotion is refreshing. "You've made that abundantly clear," she snaps, slowing the treadmill to a walk and hopping off of it. "Which again begs the question, what are you doing here?"

She doesn't wait for an answer. She stalks away from him towards the girls' locker room, presumably to collect her things. But now that Sasuke's attention has been arrested, he will not let her walk out on him, not when he wants her to know that her very existence is infuriating to him, not when he wants to make her as truly, truly frustrated as she makes him. He reaches out and grabs her elbow to stop her.

Her skin is frustratingly smooth. Her arm is slim and his fingers wrap entirely around it to demonstrate the difference in size. The girl jerks free, flustered, and whirls around to face him.

"What, Sasuke?" she snaps.

Sasuke is somewhat surprised, and very intrigued. She reacts with violence and urgency when he touches her; holding her elbow shouldn't elicit such a negative response. It seems he's finding more and more pieces of this puzzle, but he still can't quite make out the picture.

Exactly how damaged is this girl?

He tries again. His hand seizes her wrist to keep her in place, and now that he's looking for it, there's no mistaking the naked panic on her face. Green eyes dilate and her breath quickens. Her wrist beneath his fingers is stiff; he watches her entire body tense up like she's preparing for an all-out sprint.

Fight or flight response.

Sasuke is aware that a crowded gym is not the best place to be testing his theories, especially when the girl looks like she might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But these are symptoms he recognizes: post-traumatic stress. What could have happened to her, that a man's touch, however innocent, ignites such fear within her?

She gasps and pries her wrist out of his grasp. She backs away cautiously and stares up at him with confusion and anger and fright and wariness and a thousand other emotions flirting through her gaze, her sneakers squeaking on the rubbery floor as she does so.

"Calm down," he says, harsher than he intended in the first place. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

The words have the opposite effect he is aiming for. Rather than reassure her, Sasuke watches as her cautious eyes widen in what can only be described as terror. Sasuke gets the feeling that she has heard those words before, a different place, time, and context, and is reliving a memory too painful for him to imagine.

The blush in her cheeks from her workout fades; all the color drains from her face as her shoulders lock up, her arms wrapped tight around herself in an unshakable grip. She releases short, shallow breaths and she trembles like a leaf in the wind.

Sasuke realizes what's happening. She's having a panic attack. Abruptly, the picture becomes clearer and clearer, not entirely, because he doubts he will ever figure out this fakefake girl completely, but enough for him to make out a rough estimation of what she's been through, why she is the way she is. He is torn between satisfaction at forcing honesty from her and guilt at what it's caused, and he knows that he can't let her break down right here, in the gym in front of everyone.

"Come on," he says sharply. He doesn't touch her, because that's what started this in the first place. "Let's go."

"Please," she whispers, but he gets the sense that she isn't speaking to him at all. Her gaze is unfocused as if she is looking at something he can't see. "Please don't, please stop..."

Sasuke doesn't know what to do now. The girl is borderline catatonic, and people are starting to notice.

But the girl makes his job a bit easier when the stress of the situation catches up to her. Her eyes roll back in her head and she falls forward, directly into his arms.

Shit.

xoxoxo

When Sakura wakes up, it is to a splitting headache, a rush of familiar, hated dizziness, and unfamiliar bed linens too dark to be her own.

This is not her room.

A wave of panic rushes through her until she catches the scent of something secure. A quick assessment of her surroundings: utilitarian black bedsheets, bare walls, a duffle bag full of baseball equipment, reveals what her subconscious knew already.

She is in Sasuke's room.

It takes her a moment, as always, to remember what's happened. It comes back to her slowly. She'd been in the gym, Sasuke had come looking for her. A discussion. An argument.

His hand around her elbow, her wrist. Memories of a night she longs to leave rotting in the past where it belongs, instead of in the forefront of her mind, where it is and threatens to always be.

Whispered words, intended to be reassuring.

_I'm not gonna hurt you._

Sasuke's lips were moving, the words were his, but Sakura remembers them from that balmy summer night one year prior. She remembers how they soaked into her subconscious as her head swam, her heart raced, and her muscles wouldn't cooperate. She remembers how they were whispered in her ear, the smell of rum and malice so pungent she was nearly sick. She remembers how they preceded an event that scarred her so terribly, she fears and knows she will never again be the girl she once was.

Sakura blinks back tears and sits up slowly, stretching her stiff muscles. She is unaware of Sasuke's presence until he clears his throat, and she looks around to find him sitting in his desk chair facing her. His expression is unreadable.

For a long time, there is silence. And Sakura wonders what he sees when he looks at her, at the broken, unfixable mess she's been for months and probably years and most likely forever.

She wonders and waits.

xoxoxo

**note.. **Thank you for your continued support. :)


	7. Start

Sasuke studies her for a long time.

She is disheveled, messy like he has never seen her. Her makeup is smeared from sweating and crying. Her hair is tangled up in a ponytail, her clothes rumpled from her workout. Her eyes are bloodshot and unfocused like she's been drinking and smoking something illegal, her gaze wild.

In this moment, Sasuke realizes that he is attracted to her.

Her beauty is simply a fact about her, one he accepted the first moment he saw her and then promptly discarded because of its irrelevance. She is slender, her curves small but not negligible, her face angular enough to be striking but soft enough to convey the somewhat saccharine femininity that is advertised in her pink hair and shiny green eyes. The prettiest girl he's ever come across, but not worth examining in any further detail.

Now, though, he sees her at her worst. Her professionally-applied makeup is streaky down her flushed cheeks. Her hair, once set in pristine curls and shiny waves with not a single lock out of place, is frizzy and unkempt like she hasn't combed it in months. Her artfully-selected wardrobe is nothing more than a T-shirt, shorts, and running sneakers, there is nothing artificial about her, and she _remains_ the prettiest girl he's ever come across.

The most beautiful thing about her, though, is the honesty, the truthfulness he's never seen before in her. Her personality, happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, sweet and inherently, impossibly kind, all of that shines through at different times. He's seen enough of her to know that she is not 100% artificial. In fact, it seems that she has carefully chosen and compartmentalized the facets of herself she hidesconcealslies about. She is becoming less of a frustration, an enigma, a mystery, and more of a human.

He does not take his eyes off her, and she does not look away from him either. He is careful not to blink. The slightest movement could send her spiraling right back into her cocoon of falsehoods, and he knows she will be honest with him for as long as he can look into her eyes.

He isn't sure why he wants, _demands_ honesty from her.

His usual apathy does not seem to touch her. In fact, Sasuke is starting to suspect that this confusing, frustrating, intriguing girl was issued a very different set of rules from the rest of the world, when it came to him. With any other stranger, he wouldn't care in the slightest if they chose to conceal themselves away from him, if they chose to pretend to be someone they were not. But with this girl, who has fooled everyone on campus _except him,_ he finds that her refusal to admit her own faults is maddening. Infuriating.

He does not know why he cares, outside of the fact that she is now a part of his social circle.

He does not know why he is affected by her physical attractiveness, either. Every possible theory is quickly discarded.

All he knows is that this girl has been through something horrific, something that makes her the fakefakefake she is today, and he can't explain why, but he's curious about it.

Whatever this girl endured in her past couldn't be as horrendous as what he endured, but Sasuke is more mature than the angry, bratty little boy he'd once been, who discounted everyone's struggles in favor of obsessing over his own. He knows that the world is a dark and vicious place sometimes. That innocent people suffer tragedies they don't deserve, while criminals and scoundrels and assholes roam free, unpunished and remorseless and that things aren't fair. He knows that somehow, this girl knows it, too.

Sasuke already has his theories about what happened to her, but he cannot bring himself to voice them aloud. His suspicions are plenty dark enough and they twist something inside of him, but he does not think it's pity or sympathy or compassion. Those emotions were squashed out of him from the get-go, from the moment he woke up alone, an orphan, with the weight of the world on shoulders ill-fit to carry it.

So he doesn't know why it's so imperative that this girl is honest with him. He doesn't understand it, but he feels it and he can't change it.

She sits up in his bed eyeing him nervously, and he wonders vaguely if she will try to lie. Make up an excuse for her collapse in the gym. Low blood sugar, trouble sleeping, a surprise flu. He prepares himself to counter each one, if necessary.

She suffers from post-traumatic stress. She couldn't bear to be touched by him, and once he laid a hand on her, as nonthreatening and innocent as the touch was, she'd succumbed to an attack so powerful, she'd passed out right in his arms.

If she tries to pass that off as anything less than what it was, he is quite certain he will yell in her face.

The silence stretches on for several minutes as they just stare at one another, before the girl's shoulders slump as if in defeat. She folds her hands nervously in her lap and bows her head.

"I'm sorry about that, Sasuke," she says softly. Her voice is remarkably calm for what she's going through. Sasuke realizes that this might not be an isolated incident. The girl might be more than used to picking herself up off the floor, finding a smile that means nothing to reassure people who can't see her for what she is, stumbling to her feet and carrying on.

His chest tightens uncomfortably but he dismisses it and waits for her to continue.

"I...I get panic attacks sometimes. Anxiety. Please don't tell anyone about this, no one knows but you."

He is not as surprised as he feels he should be. After all, she puts up an admirable front; she is a convincing actress, and has everyone here fooled. Everyone except him. It is less shocking than he thinks it ought to be, at how successful she is at keeping her issues contained, under the radar.

"Why do you get them." Sasuke's voice is quiet, and she looks away from him at last, her hands clenching into fists over her lap.

"I think you already know why," she murmurs. "I don't want to say it. I think you know."

He does.

It's not like he has all the experience in the world, dealing with women who have endured what she's endured, but the more he thinks about it, the more obvious it is. And Sasuke is many things, but he is not a fool, and even though he's still missing a few pieces of the puzzle, enough of it is already on the table to lay out an obvious foundation.

Her skittishness around men. Her crippling anxiety attacks. Flashbacks so painful she can't move or breathe. Her refusal to discuss her life before Konoha University.

She's been raped.

He doesn't know if it was once or twice or a hundred times. He doesn't know if they caught the man who did it, the men if it was a gang rape, if anyone was watching or how many were participating. He doesn't know if she's sought professional help for her struggle, if she's spoken to police officers or counselors or her parents or a friend. The one revelation about the girl with pink hair trembling like a leaf in his bed engenders a thousand more mysteries, but knowing this one thing about her, even if she won't say it aloud, elicits something more than sympathy, pity from Sasuke.

Respect.

Yes, she is broken. Yes, she is a mess. And yes, she is a liar.

But she is moving still. Moving forward, and moving on, and trying her hardest not to let the ghosts of her past claim her future. She has a long way to go, she is stumbling more often than not and she falls and falls and fails. But each time, she does not stay down. Even if she buoys herself up with lies and deceit and false smiles and insincerity, she's doing the best she can.

Sakura. The girl's name is Sakura. He will call her that and he will no longer think of her as only 'the girl.'

She's earned his respect.

xoxoxo

It's one of the lowest moments of Sakura's life.

She sits in Sasuke's bed, which smells clean and good just like Sasuke, the sheets a little too starch for her tastes. His side of the room reminds her of barracks at a military camp. No needless, homey touch, just the bare minimum, and that speaks as much about his personality as her fifty posters of 1940's movie stars speak about her.

She focuses on anything but him, or at least she tries to. Everything Sasuke does is intense. Full of purpose. He stares at her with arresting black eyes and slowly works out the secrets she has tried so hard to hide. It's been barely a week and he's already pried out of her (at least most of the way) what she's dedicated most of her life to burying in the shadows of the past. She doesn't know why he cares, but for as scary as it is divulging so much ugliness about her, there is also a catharsis in it as well. A liberation.

She feels low, but she also feels light.

To her surprise, Sasuke, with his accusing eyes and smothering presence, does not look at her with judgment, nor is there any pity in his gaze. It is the one reaction she has been praying for from those who learn her bitter secret: nonreaction. No 'too bad, so sad, poor little girl.' No meaningless sympathy. He does not scorn what she's been through, nor does he shower her with pity. He simply accepts it as a fact about her.

That's all she ever wanted, she realizes. She does not want one night to define her existence. Perhaps that is why she kept it so close to the vest all these months; not only is the memory shameful, Sakura wants to be known for who she is and what she does, not the darkest moment she's endured.

Sasuke looks at her and says nothing. He does not say 'I'm so sorry', which is the last thing she wants to hear, since nobody is sorrier than Sakura herself. And in his silence, in his quiet acceptance, he lightens her burden the smallest amount.

Sakura is filled with a rush of affection for him. She wants to throw her arms around him. She knows he is not that type of boy, though, so she keeps her hands to herself, but the fact that she actually wants to initiate physical contact with a boy is a relatively new concept for her. Prior to That Night, she was as flirty and coy as every other teenage girl. After That Night, she is a fortress, untouchable and skittish. Contact makes her nervous, makes her think of how horribly, horribly wrong it can go. Sasuke put his hand on her arm and she passed out.

But now, she sees that although this boy is intimidating, dangerous-looking, he will not hurt her the way she's been hurt. He accepts her for the honest mess she is, and she finds herself wanting to touch him.

"I'm sorry," she repeats. She isn't quite sure what she's apologizing for. Occupying his bed, maybe. Collapsing and requiring his rescue. A million other ways she's inconvenienced him.

"Tch, for what," he mutters, rolling his eyes.

When Sakura smiles, it isn't a grand, ear-to-ear brilliant grin like what she's known for back home. But it reaches her eyes, and in it reflects something she hasn't had enough of in so many, many months.

Hope.

She looks at Uchiha Sasuke and thinks to herself, _This is a start._

xoxoxo

Things change, after that night.

It's subtle at first. Breakfast in the morning before class. Sasuke finds himself in her room more often than not, sometimes with the others, sometimes alone. They study and study together; she impresses him (he won't say so) with her intelligence and work ethic, and he helps her with her rather extensive biology terminology.

He finds himself working out with her as well. It does nothing to assuage his growing attraction to her, which he dismisses as purely physical, because Sakura's beauty is objective apparently, rather than subjective. But he does so anyway. They don't do anything _together_ in the gym, just head down at the same time, and leave at the same time.

Sasuke finds himself reluctant to let her walk around by herself at night.

And they talk.

Not about anything heavy, anyway, but Sasuke begrudgingly realizes that Sakura, with her intelligence and surprisingly snarky wit, is a good conversationalist. She keeps his interest and she knows more about baseball than many of the guys he knows, which he appreciates.

She does not ask him about his past. He does not ask her about hers. It is an unspoken rule: they are sort of friends now, and crossing any personal boundaries is taboo. Neither of them step over the line.

Sasuke thinks that's what makes them sort of friends in the first place.

One night, Sasuke walks Sakura back from the gym to her room. Not technically, anyway, since he was heading back to Hokage Hall himself and she just happens to be there, too; he drops her off and waves half-heartedly when she says "Good night, Sasuke, see you tomorrow," and slumps tiredly back to his own room down the hall.

Naruto is waiting for him, a salacious grin on his face as he lays on his bed, hands behind his head.

"Out with Sakura-chan again, huh?"

Sasuke does not miss the connotation, and rolls his eyes and says nothing.

"Hahahaha it's so _obvious,_ man. I never thought I'd see the day! When _Uchiha Sasuke_ falls head over ass for a girl!"

"Dobe," Sasuke replies. He kicks off his sneakers and grabs a towel with all the intent in the world of taking a long, hot shower to soothe his aching muscles. He does not let Naruto see how his words are affecting him, but Naruto, for his stupidity, has always been surprisingly observant.

"Who could blame you though? Sakura-chan's really pretty and really sweet and really smart...you should grow some balls and ask her out! She'd probably say yes, even to you!"

"You are too stupid to insult," Sasuke mumbles, and he leaves his best friend laughing as if at some private joke and stalks to the bathroom.

The water runs hot over his skin, nearly hot enough to raise welts, but he barely notices. Instead he stares at the ugly green tiling and thinks about what Naruto was saying.

Sasuke is attracted to Sakura, but beyond that, they are friends. Sort of. He is not in any mentality to even entertain the idea of a woman, a girl; Sasuke knows that for as messed up as Sakura is, he is equally as fucked up, if not more so. The last thing in the world either of them need is to become embroiled in some sordid love affair with one another.

No. Their arrangement right now is best. Friends on a somewhat shallow level. Never prying into one another's lives too deeply. Never expecting anything more from one another than help with homework or someone to walk to the gym with.

Sasuke knows better than to become attached to a girl like Sakura, the kind of girl who threatens to become the center of his universe if he isn't careful. He knows to hold her at bay lest she become anymore relevant to him than she already has. He understands the theory of it.

The execution eludes him, though, as he pictures her cheeks flushed with heat, her chest heaving after thirty minutes on the treadmill.

Almost against his will, he reaches for the faucet and lets the water run cold over him instead.

xoxoxo

Ino teases Sakura about her increased involvement with Sasuke. Karin teases her. The boys tease her. Naruto teases her.

"We're friends," she says to all of them, and she wonders if that is crossing a line. Does Sasuke consider them friends? Or merely acquaintances with similar schedules who sometimes associate with one another?

Well, she considers Sasuke a friend. He is the only person in the world besides her high school guidance counselor who knows what she's been through, and that night he confronted her about it solidified his relevance to her, in her mind, anyway. She does not care if Sasuke does not consider her a friend; he is important to her.

"Well, baby doll," Ino says after Sakura repeats her argument, stretching out on Sakura's carpet and eyeing her perfectly painted fingernails with admiration, "I know Sasuke pretty well...back in school, he never gave any girl the time of day, including yours truly. Can you imagine?"

"Hm," Sakura hums in disinterest. She warms up a bowl of instant ramen in her microwave and counts down the seconds till Naruto comes pounding on the door, demanding a cup of his own can he please share thank you Sakura-chan.

"All I'm saying is, he looks at you different than the rest of us."

Sakura stiffens.

That's not what she wants to hear.

She does not want to be different. She wants to be the same as Sasuke's other friends. She does not want him to look at her like anything besides just another one of his friends and the thought that he might treat her differently because of what he knows she's been through churns her stomach.

"And maybe," Ino continues, "that's worth looking into."

Sakura sighs and shakes her head. "We're friends, Ino. Nothing more than that."

A pounding on the door interrupts the somewhat serious moment, and Sakura is so grateful to Naruto that she hands him the entire bowl of ramen. He cheerfully joins them in her room, scarfing down the cheap noodles as fast as he can, and Sakura smiles.

Who cares what Ino thinks.

Ino romanticizes things, that much is obvious. And despite the fact that Sakura finds Sasuke almost alarmingly attractive, she knows that he will never be interested in someone like her, and that it is useless to hope it might ever be otherwise.

She likes things the way they are now. Sasuke acknowledges her and does not push her away, even knowing how tainted and twisted she is on the inside. They are friends, practically.

She will not ruin that by pushing for anything more.

xoxoxo

**note..** All right, there it is, Sakura's big secret. My goal with this story was to present the reality of rape to people who haven't experienced it for themselves. As someone who's been through this ordeal, I'm doing this with empathy and sensitivity because I've seen so, so many fictions on this site about rape that are ill-researched and frankly, insulting to those of us who have endured it. Fictions where Sasuke rapes Sakura and she enjoys it, fictions that don't explore the aftereffects of it, that use it pornographically when there is nothing remotely sexy about it at all. It is devastating and skews your perception of the world. I respect all the writers on this site, but this issue is particularly sensitive to me, and I wanted to contribute something that shows how fucked up it can make you because you lucky people who haven't gone through it just don't know and I hopehopehope you never have to know.

And for those of you who _have_ experienced this, you aren't as alone as you think you are, and IT GETS BETTER I PROMISE. I love you.

Sasuke's got some skeletons in his closet, too. I'm excited to get into that as well.

Back to the Phillies game. Stressing me the fuck out with how close it is. Love you guys as always, and thank you for your support!


	8. Scar

They are at breakfast one morning a few weeks later when Sasuke sees it.

Sakura still wears makeup, but not as much anymore. She seems to understand without him saying it that he is not impressed by her disguise, that he prefers her as natural as possible. She still dresses up, lives up to her reputation as the prettiest girl on campus, but when they're studying together, working out, hanging out, she seems as comfortable in yoga pants and hoodies as she does in skinny jeans and baby doll dresses.

So at breakfast, she is poring over their Psychology notes, prepping for a test he knows she will ace, when she moves her sheet of shiny pink hair over one shoulder, and had he not been looking at her at the precise right moment he would have missed it, but as it is, he was looking and he sees it.

A scar. Thin, pink, faded with time, probably invisible to most, but Sasuke's eyes are sharp. He zeroes in on it, fascinated by it, and somewhat angered at its location.

It's positioned on her throat.

The smooth, unblemished column of her neck sports one flaw: the shallow baby pink scar just under her jaw, and Sasuke's eyes narrow.

He isn't sure why he's angry, but Sasuke is no stranger to the streets, and that scar looks like the relic of a knifewound. Not the kind of silly scars made by clumsy girls trying to slice vegetables in cooking class. Without wanting to, he pictures a nameless assailant holding Sakura, a rusty blade pressed dangerously against the skin of her neck.

Anger overwhelms him in white hot waves, and this too surprises him. Rarely does he become so angry anymore; his unfettered fury has cooled over the years into a kind of apathy, resurging only in moments of great physical or psychological distress. The blood he's left smeared on most of the equipment in the gym is proof of that, but Sasuke does not often become angry on someone else's behalf, being far too consumed in his own shitstorm of a life to devote any time to anyone else.

But Sakura is an anomaly. An exception to his every rule, and maybe that's what's so fascinating (and infuriating) about her. She commands so much of his attention, his respect.

The fact that she's easy on the eyes doesn't hurt either, but for the millionth time, he shelves his growing sexual attraction to her, writing it off as bad news.

Sakura looks up at him, and sees where he's looking. She blushes and shakes her hair out again, candy pink tresses falling back into place and hiding the scar once more.

He wants to ask her about it, but that's breaking one of their unspoken rules, perhaps their most important one at that: don't cross the line. Don't ask questions. Don't dig too deep because each one knows the other one will not like what they find.

So he pretends the discovery never happened. He compartmentalizes this new piece of information along with so many other facts about Sakura, and they finish their breakfast in silence.

He wants to forget what he saw, but like so many other horrible, horrible things he has witnessed, it has emblazoned itself permanently in his memory.

xoxoxo

Sakura feels better these days.

They are a month into the semester. Her classes are difficult but enjoyable. Her friends are overwhelming but she likes them, maybe even loves them. She sleeps better and works out regularly and enjoys a social life and popularity on campus, even as a freshman.

And there's Sasuke too. Probably the best part of her semester, not that she would ever admit it aloud.

He is quiet and sulky, snarky and brooding. Arrogant as well, perhaps a little too ambitious. But she respects him nonetheless, and what's more, he makes her feel safe.

Safe is not a familiar feeling for Sakura, not lately anyway. It's too transient, too effervescent to really be trusted. A temporary delusion of a state that does not exist, because she knows that you're never truly 100% safe. She knows it better than most.

But whenever she's with him, sitting beside him as they compare Psych notes in the cafeteria, walking with him to class while he argues that Pulp Fiction is way way better than Inglourious Basterds and she argues that he's an idiot, watching baseball games in her room while he argues that the Yankees are better than the Phillies, something she equates to blasphemy...whenever she's with Sasuke, safety does not feel like an illusion.

It's almost...a certainty. Guaranteed.

How could you not feel safe with him? she muses one day, as they grab coffee before their Psych lab at the campus shop. She eyes him, tall and lean but still muscular, dark eyes fearless, jaw set with confidence that borders on arrogance. He looks ready to attack at a moment's notice, like a caged panther, and it's impossible not to feel protected when he walks beside her.

She is swiftly becoming addicted to it. To him. After so many, many months fearing her own shadow, it is an unspeakable relief to surround herself with sweet, sweet security. Like a drug, and she can't get enough of it. He doesn't judge her for her past and doesn't pry, and on top of that, she knows he won't let anything happen to her.

She doesn't deserve a friend like him, and knowing that, she forbids herself to think of him as anything more than that.

xoxoxo

Soccer practice is a welcome escape from his stressful schedule.

He makes the varsity team, starting midfielder, impressing the hell out of the coaches and the upperclassmen who are his teammates, but this is nothing new to Sasuke. He is a seasoned athlete, with a dangerously competitive nature and he loves matching himself up against other guys and coming out on top every time.

His father would be proud, he thinks as he laces up his cleats. Or maybe not, because Father was always notoriously difficult to please. But short of going professional, he's not sure what else Father could have expected from him.

Sasuke reminds himself that he no longer needs to please anyone but himself. There is no father, no mother, no loving older brother back home hanging their hopes up on him. There is nothing but memories, sweet and bitter in equal measure, lying in the tragedy of his past, and for the millionth time, he reminds himself that he does not need to live up to anyone's expectations but his own.

As always, his own advice is the hardest to follow.

So he trains himself at team practice. He works out when he isn't studying, and he smothers his thoughts of Sakura as they increase in frequency and potency. He knows it's a terrible idea, the two of them. That they are lucky to be friends and to expect more than that is foolish. That the last thing someone like her needs is someone like him.

But the more time he spends with her, the harder it is to expel her from his thoughts. Her honest smile, becoming increasingly broader, brighter, more beautiful every day, is inked indelibly in his mind. The scent of her, like clean cotton and something floral, pervades his room even when she's not there and ensures that not only are his waking thoughts of her, but his dreams as well. Her irrational but amusing counterarguments to just about everything he says replay in his ears long after she goes back to her own room.

He will control this attraction to her. He will channel it into his studies and his workouts and his self-improvement as an Uchiha. He will relegate her to the role of friend only, even if his body and something in his chest scream at him for moremoremore taketaketake; she seems to have done the same to him, at any rate. Of all the girls he's known, she is the only one who has not flirted shamelessly with him, and he respects her for it even if it leaves an emptiness inside him he can't identify.

Friends, and nothing more than that.

He hopes that he can follow through this time.

xoxoxo

Sakura is dozing off in Sasuke's room.

He doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't tell her to leave, in any case. They have been researching topics for their Psychology papers and they lose track of time, like always. Naruto is away visiting his girlfriend at a junior college back where he's from, which means that Sasuke has the room to himself, for once.

She likes his room. She likes that it is a perfect amalgamation of his personality and Naruto's, her two favorite boys, their differences startling and clashing into one another like some weird art that works, somehow. She likes his impeccably tidy side of the room compared to Naruto's, which is festooned with clothes and trash and empty ramen cups and CD's.

She likes that it smells like Sasuke, who always always always smells good, even after their grueling workouts late at night.

He is at his desk and she is lying on her stomach on the carpet, her books spread out in front of her as she works. They don't say much to one another; during study time, they have an excellent rapport compared to the rest of her friends, who want to talk and eat and get distracted. Not Sasuke. Everything he does is so intense, so focused. It's one of the things she loves about him.

She also wonders why he is that way. What makes Uchiha Sasuke who he is? What is that force that drives him as hard as he pushes himself? What is he moving toward? What is he running from?

She knows she musn't ask him, it defies their rules, but she can't help her curiosity. She's getting sleepier and sleepier, the words are starting to blend and blur, and before she knows it, she is facedown in her textbook, fast asleep.

Before she falls, though, she knows she won't have any nightmares. She's not sure how she knows, but she does.

xoxoxo

Sasuke stretches his aching shoulders and sighs, shutting his textbook and turning off his laptop. His rough draft is complete now, even if his eyes hurt from straining to look at the monitor all that time, and his back is sore.

He turns to say something to Sakura, and to his surprise, he sees her lying on the carpet, curled up like a kitten, fast asleep.

Now he has a choice to make. He can't very well leave her on the floor, it's uncomfortable and cold. He doesn't want to wake her though, not when he knows how hard she's been working herself and how heavily she sleeps. No other option, he shields himself with apathy, stands quietly, and approaches her.

She doesn't hear him and when he picks her up, she doesn't stir. She is almost weightless, tiny and light in his arms, and Sasuke fights the attraction that courses through him when his fingers sweep across the bare skin of her smooth ivory legs, and deposits her gently in his bed.

She immediately, instinctively snuggles beneath his thin blanket and releases a sleepy sigh of contentment. Sasuke tries not to, but again his sharp vision betrays him: the image of pink hair splayed against his pillow, the pale porcelain of her skin against his dark bedsheets is burned into his subconscious. She is achingly beautiful, and she is lying in his bed, and it is all Sasuke can do not to touch her again.

His self-control is slipping around her, as he feared it might. She has a disarming quality about her, an aura that compels him to lower his guard, to relax as she becomes even more relevant to him. He fights it but it is a losing battle.

Sakura rolls over as he watches her, and he stiffens, unnerved that she might be awake and aware of his shameless staring, but she merely turns her head and is still. Her hair spills forward and exposes the scar he'd seen in the cafeteria, the tiny slash on her neck that draws him in.

He finds himself capable of hatred again. Who could have hurt Sakura? It makes no sense to him how anyone could harm her, and before he can stop himself, he reaches out and his fingertips brush gentlygently softly against the scar on her throat.

Sakura doesn't stir. Instead she leans into his touch and he watches as her pretty pink lips tilt in the smallest, sweetest of smiles.

And Sasuke knows the battle is lost.

He is falling for her, and if he isn't careful from now on, he's going to hit the bottom any day.

**note..** Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback! I love you guys :) You make me want to write nonstop!


	9. Here

Sakura gets a job the next day.

Her friends say she's crazy, what with her stressful workload at school, but then again, none of them know that Sakura is supporting herself. All of her friends (with the exception of Sasuke, who is as much of an anomaly as she is) have loving families back home who send them money and care packages stuffed with goodies and notes of love and support.

Sakura doesn't bother to check her mailbox. There doesn't seem to be much point.

But she has allowed herself one month to adapt to her schedule here at Konoha University, one month to make friends and acclimate to her surroundings, and now, spending money becomes an issue. Her summer savings are all but evaporated; that shopping trip into the city with the girls seems more and more of a frivolous mistake.

Sakura has another reason to get a job.

She wakes up in Sasuke's bed, overwhelmed by the scent and feel of him, and it's so intensely wonderful that she instantly fears it. He must have picked her up off the floor and tucked her in, and like a true gentleman, she sees that he has slept in Naruto's bed. (Though, she notes, not before stripping the questionable sheets and replacing them with clean ones.)

She knows then, that she is getting too close to Uchiha Sasuke. The line between friend and something more is beginning to blur, and with her odious past, Sakura does not do well with shades of gray. She likes things clearly defined, organized and compartmentalized and categorized.

Meeting Sasuke, or someone like him, the kind of boy she knowsknowsknows could claim her heart if she isn't careful, was not in her plans when she came to school.

Sakura knows what she deserves. It is a dark and ugly truth, but she knows that she doesn't deserve someone like Sasuke. Gorgeous Sasuke who has girls falling over themselves just to speak to him. Smart Sasuke who aces every test, every report, every lab experiment. Athletic Sasuke who, as a freshman, dominates the soccer field and shames the skills of his upperclassmen teammates. Intense Sasuke, who sees right through her and still doesn't run away.

The knowledge of this hurts, but pain is familiar to Sakura. Unpleasant, but she can endure it. In order to spare herself further heartache, though, she needs to distance herself somewhat from her friend, restore some space between them. Sasuke has his soccer practice now, and getting a campus job seems like a good idea, so she has something to do, something to distract herself with, besides her growing attachment to the quiet boy with dark eyes and pain in his past who lives down the hall.

When she tells her friends that she is the new barista at the campus coffee shop at lunch that day, she swears that Sasuke's eyes meet hers, a sort of grim understanding passing through his gaze, before he looks away, and the connection is broken.

Neither one of them mention the unscheduled sleepover from the night before.

xoxoxo

Sasuke can read Sakura more easily these days.

From the moment he met her, he somewhat understood her. Perhaps not everything about her, but enough to tell that she wasn't who she said she was. Everything she did had some higher purpose, some ulterior motive. Each smile had its function, each laugh its place.

Since learning that about her, since opening up to her more and allowing her to do the same, he has become more confident in his ability to read her mind.

She announces that she has a job now, a part-time job every other day at the campus coffee shop. She deflects questions on why she's working with such an overwhelming load of schoolwork with a smile and a joke that appeases Naruto and Ino and the others, but Sasuke sees more to it than that.

She is trying to distance herself from him.

It's probably for the best, he tells himself, as he stares hard into green eyes that try and fail to look honest. He is aware that his growing connection to Sakura is bad news for both of them, and if they continue at their present pace, it will end in heartache and disaster. Sakura isn't breaking off their friendship; she is merely restoring some space to it.

It's a good idea, he tells himself. A good thing. Smart. Sensible.

He wonders why it's hard to believe that.

He wonders why somewhere in his chest, in a place he once thought had iced over, scabbed over, couldn't be hurt again, there is a dull ache, like he hasn't properly digested his food, or drank water too fast. He pushes away the rest of his lunch and pointedly ignores Sakura for the rest of the day.

xoxoxo

A week passes. Sakura is busier than ever, between learning the ins and outs of the coffee-making business, attending all her classes, doing all her homework, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life that doesn't revolve entirely around Uchiha Sasuke.

It hurts more than she thought it would, separating herself from him somewhat. They see each other when the group hangs out together, but he has been missing at breakfast, and she has skipped out on the gym all week.

She misses him already, misses their strange connection, their constant bickering, their shallow friendship based entirely on the other one's need for secrecy. She rooms so close to him, but he feels a thousand miles away, and bitterly she knows that he knows her reason for doing this. She can hide almost nothing from him, after all.

He handles it admirably. Gives her space, takes his own as well. They are polite and civil to one another.

She hates it. All she wants to do is yell at him, start a fight, anything to get him to pay attention to her again. She always felt special when she was with Sasuke, an inexplicable feeling because Sakura knows that there is nothing special about a fake, broken, damaged girl like her, but she enjoyed the lie all the same.

She's becoming too reliant on him as well; he is her shield against nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks, all the things that torment her so when he isn't around. She knows that she needs to find some inner peace on her own, without depending on him to protect her from what haunts her every waking thought and every dream.

So she staggers back to her room at midnight on Thursday, exhausted from a shift at The Bean. She walks past his room and ignores the pang of longing that surges through her when she sees his name on the door. She showers and combs out her hair and gets dressed for bed and brushes her teeth.

She falls asleep full of regret.

xoxoxo

Sasuke wakes at three am to a text from Sakura.

"I'm at the bench on K-Quad."

He knows it's an invitation, and he is instantly, abruptly angry with her. First, she barely speaks to him all week, and now, she is texting him at an obscene hour to meet her all the way across campus.

Angrily, he yanks on his sneakers and tugs a hoodie over his head. Briefly, he notices that it is never a thought in his mind to ignore her, to turn down her offer, and that makes him angrier. She controls so much of him without even meaning to, and when did Uchiha Sasuke relinquish his power to pretty little someday-doctors, anyway?

Not to mention, he realizes as he stalks out of the room, down four flights of stairs, and into the chilliness of the night, it is dangerous for her to be out alone at such an hour. Surely someone who's been what she's been through has more sense than to wander around by herself at night.

He makes the trek at a pace he tells himself isn't hurried, and then he sees pink and knows he's found her. He starts off towards her, fully intending to yell at her for being stupid and annoying and fake and alwaysalwaysalways on his mind, when she looks up and the sorrow in her eyes stops him in his tracks.

She's crying. Her pretty green eyes are tinged red, tears streaming in rivers down her cheeks. Her hair is curly and wild, like she fell asleep with it wet, and she looks tiny and fragile in the oversized sweatshirt (he recognizes it as his) she's drowning in.

She looks up at him and says nothing. She doesn't need to.

Sasuke abruptly forgets his anger. He exhales sharply through his nose and then sits down on the little stone bench beside her. He lifts his arm and wraps it around her tiny shoulders almost lazily. She leans in against him, tucking perfectly into his side, and he feels warmth flood through him, replacing the seething rage that scalds his blood, cooling into something else entirely that he doesn't recognize but thoroughly welcomes.

Sasuke wonders if this girl, if Sakura, is doing the same thing to him. Because he no longer recognizes himself, but he doesn't think the change is unwelcome.

xoxoxo

Sakura and Sasuke spend the night outside, sitting on the uncomfortable little bench in the middle of the quad, watching the twinkling stars overhead bleed into a cloudy weekend morning. Neither sleeps, neither speaks. Sakura sniffles and wipes her tears on the sleeve of her (Sasuke's) sweatshirt, and his thumb rubs lazily against her shoulder, in comfort and support and silent understanding.

His heartbeat, so close to her ear, is strong and even, and it anchors her to herself. Maybe, if she can't hold herself together, he can do it for her, just by being here. Just by sitting beside her when the nights stretch and shrink, and she finds herself going in and out of her mind. Not always, but sometimes.

The thought is comforting. Sasuke doesn't murmur sweet words to her, tell her everything's going to be all right, because he knows, like she does, that it's foolish to promise things that aren't true. Sakura knows it may never be all right, but she's here in the meantime, and Sasuke's strength makes her want to make the best of the time she's given.

She doesn't know the burdens he shoulders. She doesn't know what horrors lie in his past, what nightmares plague him while she sleeps a few rooms away, what obstacles stand in his future. She doesn't know what he sees when he looks at her, what he finds in her that makes her worth the 2 am trip to the middle of the quad.

Whatever it is, Sasuke has become her most precious friend. Without even really trying to, he has commandeered her heart, earned her trust, gained her respect. They argue and laugh and tease together when things aren't so hard, and he is silent and reliable when they are.

Sakura vows, as she watches the inky sky lighten to the color of unmelted snow, that she will be for Sasuke what he is for her.

His rock. His friend. His lifeline.

She hopes he will let her. She knows he can't stop her.

xoxoxo

Sasuke's arm is numb.

It's chilly outside, and Sakura is small but impossibly warm, so he doesn't move all night long. She leans against him, crying softly, quietly, her little hand wound in the front of his hoodie. He is uncomfortable being so close to what tempts him so much, but there is nothing remotely sexual about this moment.

In their silence, in their unspoken camaraderie, they are crossing what feels like a forbidden threshold. Sasuke feels the shift and wonders if Sakura can as well, or if it's just in his head, this transition into something deeper, something not-so-shallow like their friendship was just hours before.

It scares him and invigorates him, as much as Sakura herself does. She is perfect for him in every conceivable way, and wrong for him in a million ways more. Bright and sunny, with a darkness inside of her that he can respect, if not understand; persistent and damaged, determined and broken and maybe irreparable, but still trying to fix herself. He is poison for her, toxic, and he knows it, but he can't pull away now, as much as he might want to.

"I'm sorry," Sakura says finally, hours later, when a dusky dawn has broken, and with her words, the silent spell around them also. "I'm...I'm really, really selfish, aren't I?"

He doesn't answer. The question is not meant for him, and he knows it.

She shifts from the crook of his arm, and the sudden chill he feels is not entirely unexpected. She moves and takes her warmth with her. She tucks a stray lock of lurid pink hair behind her ear in what he recognizes as one of her nervous tics, and watches it stubbornly escape and dangle against her tear-stained cheek.

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun," she breathes. "I mean...I just...I don't know. You didn't have to come, so...thanks."

"When do you work today?" he murmurs, deflecting her apology, because that's what they do: push and fall back, press, then escape. Never venturing too far forward. They are going further than usual tonight, even if they don't say it, and Sasuke wonders when the rubber band will snap.

"Four till close. You have a game, right?"

"Aa. Come on. You need to sleep."

He stands, but he doesn't bother to shake the pins and needles from his numb arm, and he offers her his hand. She accepts it with a warm, honest smile that stirs something in what's left of his heart and he pulls her up effortlessly, and they walk back across campus to Hokage Hall.

The elevator ride is quiet. Sasuke has since released her hand and he walks her back to her room with his hands shoved in his pockets, the picture of poise, of utter, apathetic composition, the face of an Uchiha, unattached, unaffected, un-

"Good night, Sasuke-kun," Sakura says with a sweet smile, standing in the threshold of her room, eyes tired but peaceful. "Or, I guess, good morning, maybe. Whatever."

He stands still, a statue, when she stands on tiptoe to wind her arms around his neck, pressing the warm contours of her body against his, igniting a fire of impossible flames within him, but nothing as powerful as the heat that touches his heart.

"Thank you," she breathes.

He says nothing but Sakura doesn't seem disheartened. If anything, her smile brightens, her eyes brighten, something _changes_ and God Sakura don't you feel it don't you see it don't you know-

She steps into her room all the way, waves, and shuts the door behind her. Sasuke tells himself he is detached, he is aloof, he is above, he is an _exception..._

But he returns to his room knowing that above all other things, he is a fool.

xoxoxo

**note..** Thank you all so much for the wonderful support. I love you.


	10. Restraint

Sasuke doesn't love Sakura.

He knows that. He is attracted to her, he likes her, and he is standing on the precipice of something far, far _more_ than attraction, but he holds himself back.

Love is honest. Sasuke is screwed up left right and sideways but contrary to popular belief, he has a heart and he believes in love. He respects its power, reveres it even. He doesn't think it's for people like him, people who lose so, so much more than they gain, people who walk alone with only broken dreams to carry them through.

He knows, when he looks at Sakura, that she is the girl he could love someday, if something pushes him off that precarious cliff. They are somewhat truthful with one another, more so every day, but not entirely, and that stops him. Sakura lowers her guard little by little, but remains a fortress; there is so much of her that he doesn't know, that he wants to know, that he fears to know, so much of herself that she keeps _to_ herself and away from him.

How can he love her without knowing who she is?

Slowly she's unravelling. He's learning what makes her tick, what makes her laugh, what makes her cry, what makes her who she is, what makes her _Sakura._ But not entirely, because she has not opened herself to him.

Nor has he to her.

Sasuke knows that love is brutally, brutally honest. He knows that for it to be real, to be true, they each need all the facts, all the secrets laid bare between them, and neither one of them will relinquish their secrets yet. They are still raw, still new to one another. Sakura needs her secrets, and Sasuke needs his, and the space between them, though diminishing, is still stockpiled with all the things they don't and can't say to one another.

So Sasuke has decided that he will not love her. Not until he knows who she is, inside and out. Not until he knows the things she hides behind impossibly beautiful eyes, and not until she knows what monsters lurk in the recesses of what used to be his heart.

He makes the decision that he will not love her until then.

He wonders if it's something you can decide: to withhold love from someone you decide shouldn't have it yet. He wonders if it's possible.

He wonders if he doesn't love her already.

Sakura's broken all of his self-imposed rules so far. This one might not be any different.

xoxoxo

Sakura runs on the treadmill, which has a good view of the weight lifting machines, and she tells herself she isn't staring at Sasuke.

But she is, and she feels hot. Hot all over, not just from her workout, but a strange, foreign heat stirring in her abdomen as her eyes hungrily trace the fine contours of his body. His hair is slick with sweat, his jaw clenched, his T-shirt riding up to expose a sliver of impossibly hard ab muscles. His biceps look like steel, his calf muscles rock-hard.

She knows she wants him, even if sexuality is something she's learned to repress since That Night.

Before That Night, Sakura kissed boys. She flirted with them and wasn't afraid of them. But it's been a long time since then, and her difficulty dealing with what happened to her makes it improbable to expect that she will ever be comfortable reentering _that_ arena.

So Sasuke is off limits, of course. Way, way, way too good for someone screwed up as badly as she is.

But she can still look at him.

He stands from the weight lifting machine and wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Sakura dry swallows and hastily averts her eyes so he won't know she's been staring, but Sasuke is so damn perceptive; when she sneaks a peek again a few moments later, she sees a self-satisfied smirk tilting his thin lips and loathes herself all over again.

Knowing Sasuke's off limits and acting like he is are two entirely different things. And the strange heat in Sakura's stomach doesn't cool.

It burns within her like an inferno, and she has no idea how to put out the flames.

xoxoxo

"You've got it bad for Uchiha, don't you?"

Karin's question is unexpected as the girls lounge about Sakura's room; Sakura, blushing to the roots of her hair, continues painting her toenails and rolls her eyes in a way that convinces no one, not even herself.

"We're just friends," she says. Just friends.

Friends.

Sasuke is her friend, but she is finding it harder and harder to categorize him as "just a friend." Not when she has this horrible, horrible attraction to him, like a hook behind her navel, like a sauna in her bloodstream whenever he's near. The way his black eyes smolder and sear flames right through her spine with a single glance, the way the tilt of his smirk makes her mouth dry, all of it make it impossible to find any satisfaction whatsoever in categorizing Uchiha Sasuke as a friend and nothing more.

But like hell will she admit it out loud.

"Oh, come on, Forehead." Ino's nickname for her is rude but Sakura's nickname for Ino is "Pig" which is way ruder, so that's fair, in a way. "You can say it to us. It's written all over your face. He carried your books for you today and you practically melted into the carpet."

"I did not _melt,_" Sakura snaps. Inside she is panicking; is she that obvious? Has Sasuke noticed? The idea is terrifying.

"PLEASE!" Karin laughs. "Every girl has it bad for Sasuke at some point. I did for a long time. Hugely embarrassing crush, actually. Most of junior high, well into high school."

"Really?" Sakura experiences a sourness in her stomach that reminds her of being eight years old, and watching with bitter, bitter envy as her primary school classmates were picked up by happy, smiling parents, greeted with kisses and hugs and "How was your day?"s and she walked home alone, to a cold house with a cold father and a cold mother and no one cared, no one kissed her or hugged her or asked how her day was.

She recognizes the emotion as "jealousy." She is instantly jealous of Karin, someone she considers a close, close friend, someone she likes and loves, and now, she sees her as competition. She does not like this new insecurity, when she has a million more to tangle with, each one rolling through her heart and mind and demanding attention.

"Who didn't? He's gorgeous, obviously. But he never gave me the time of day. Or any other girl back home, for that matter. As far as I know, Sasuke's a nun. Until, of course, he gets his Uchiha hands on _you,_ Miz Haruno."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sakura doesn't want to admit how relieved she is at Sasuke's disinterest in Karin back in school, and the knowledge that she is pleased by such a thing is shameful. "Sasuke's not interested in me."

"The hell he's not!" Ino rolls her eyes as she tugs the curlers from her silky blonde hair, one by one. "Wake up, you twit. He's with you _every day._ You guys do _everything together._ And the way he looks at you? Jesus. Enough to get _me_ all hot and bothered, and I have a boyfriend whom I very much like, but if Sasuke looked at _me_ like how he looks at you? Phew."

"Seriously," Karin chimes in. "Sakura I realize you're way way too modest to realize this, but you're a complete ten. You're like the female version of an Uchiha."

"Oh, totally," Ino agrees, and Sakura blushes as pink as her hair.

"Not just that, but you're smart, and you're sweet, and you're innocent." Karin ticks them off one by one like they're facts rather than opinions, and Sakura longs to think of herself the way her friends think of her. "All this time, we all thought Sasuke was asexual. Turns out, though, he just has incredibly specific tastes."

"You're ridiculous and I want some watermelon slices," Sakura says, effectively terminating the conversation as she stands up, wiggles her barely-dry toes with bright pink nails, and shoves her feet into a pair of flipflops. "Let's go down to the cafeteria and quit talking about something useless."

She tries (and fails) to hide the gleeful smile that threatens her pretty pink lips, and doesn't even attempt to try to crush the hope that wells up within her, that says _Maybe just maybe someday someday soon._

xoxoxo

Sasuke notices a change in Sakura.

He likes the change.

She is flirty. That's the only way he can describe it; she looks at him and bats her eyelashes and giggles easily. She makes remarks that set his heart racing, and she seems to be more and more comfortable around him lately.

Sasuke is not stupid. She is attracted to him, and he is attracted to her. He knows where this is going, eventually. Slowly, it's becoming less of a possibility and more of a certainty. The only real variable in the situation is _when._

It's all he can really concentrate on one chilly October night, while he's running notes with Sakura in her dorm room. Everyone else has returned to their rooms, and the hour is late, and the darker it gets, the more Sasuke is _aware_ of his close proximity to Sakura.

A lesser man might have come onto her sooner. Hell, a _smarter_ man would have. Sakura is beautiful in every way it is possible to be, inside and out, and she sits beside him batting her long long lashes and making her flirty little quips and there is no one here but them, in her room, sitting on her bed. Everything she is and everything she does tempts him.

Psychology terms blur together and eventually he gives up studying entirely, and devotes his time to controlling his breathing. Sakura's leg, bare in the tiny cotton shorts she likes to wear to bed, brushes against his in a way that he thinks is way too deliberate to be accidental, and she's making him lose his mind. Much more of this, and he won't be able to stop himself from claiming her pretty pink lips, from determining for himself if her skin is as smooth as it looks, if the reality compares in any way to the fantasy.

Sakura shutting her book snaps his train of thought, and he looks around at her to see that she is staring at him. Her eyes are hooded, lips slightly parted, and then she blushes and looks away.

Sasuke regains his senses in a snap.

He is toxic for her. He knows it. Not only for who she is, which is amazing, but what she's been through, which is horrifying.

Sasuke knows, as he jumps to his feet and grabs his things and turns away, that he cannot be the one to heal her heart. Not when his is so raw, bleeding from a million invisible cuts while the rest of the world races on, oblivious to and uncaring of his agony. He knows, as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and makes for the door, that what Sakura needs is someone who can love her fearlessly and shower her with affection and care and someone who is _whole,_ to be whole when she cannot be.

He knows, as he opens the door and shuts it quietly behind him, leaving without a word, that Sakura is broken like he is and that she needs someone unbroken to remind her what it's like to be complete. He cannot be the one to fix her, when he cannot even fix himself.

There is not much distance between Sakura's room and the one he shares with Naruto. But as he steps inside his room, forcing himself to ignore a familiar ache in his chest at what he has done and must forever do, the distance feels like it stretches on for miles.

He tells himself it's for the best. This time, he doesn't need the ghosts of his past to tell him what a copout it is. What a fraud he is. What a _coward_ he is. Because he knows it already.

Sasuke cannot love Sakura.

The problem is, he thinks he already does.

xoxoxo

**note..** Nothing much today :) Phillies win, I graduated college with honors bitch, getting hitched next month to my very own Sasuke-kun, and I'm starting med school this fall. Love from Dr. Daisy 3


	11. Control

Sakura is more hurt than she thought she might be, but Sasuke's rejection is not unexpected.

She only has herself to blame, and she knows it as she sits in the empty silence of her room, Sasuke's wonderful scent lingering in the air and on her sheets and pillows and the place on the mattress where he'd sat beside her is still dipped slightly from his weight. She misses him, abruptly and irrationally, and mourns for his departure, and hates herself all over again.

Sasuke could never see anything more in her than friendship, and why should he? Why would he go for her, knowing slivers and pieces and faintest iotas of her horrific past? She is tainted. Dirty, sullied, right to her core, and no matter how hard she tries to pick up the pieces of herself and move past herself, she never can and maybe she never will.

His rejection is a brutal, but necessary, wake-up call. She must have imagined the flare of attraction in the bottomless depths of his blackblack eyes. She must have imagined the way he looked at her when she spoke, like she _mattered._ She had listened to Karin and Ino and the others rather than trust in the only thing she knows to be true:

That she is unlovable, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

Sasuke is her friend. She knows he cares for her in his own quiet way, but tonight has proven that that way is not romantic. She is fooling herself to hopewishtry for something more than that.

So she will bury this new heartache. She will choke on these new insecurities stemming from her growing affection for him, choke on them until there's no air in her lungs or energy in her limbs, until there is only that beaten, bent, unbroken will to carry-on-pick-up-move-forward-don't-look-back-don't-fall-again. She will turn the page on Uchiha Sasuke as her Prince Charming, because she does not deserve a Prince Charming.

Not when Prince Charming deserves the world, and all she has to offer is a broken heart and shards of the person she might have been.

She does not deserve Uchiha Sasuke. So she vows to hold onto him as a friend, like him silently, treasure his friendship and everything he will give her and give him everything she can in return, her heart and love and friendship, but she will withhold her expectation.

Sakura does not shed a tear. She does not break tonight, sitting alone on a bed that seems at once too small and too large for her, her legs bare in the sudden chilliness of the lonely room on the fourth floor. She studies some more, then she showers, then she weaves her hair into braids and watches a baseball game in the dark like nothing's wrong, like nothing's changed, like there isn't agony in her heart.

She sleeps that night, and yearns for Sasuke, and surrenders him all at once.

xoxoxo

Sasuke watches Sakura in the common room one morning and wonders What If.

What If is a game he played back when he was a child. He would imagine that things were different, that he had a family again, that they loved him like they used to and protected him and he would smile, picturing strong Father and kind Brother and loving Mother at the dinner table just like old times. Sometimes What If helped get him through the nights that went on for years, when the world was cold and lonely and he was angry and sad and alone.

What If stopped working as he grew, and he stopped playing.

He finds himself playing it now, and he is surprised.

What If the Uchiha family was still alive?

What If he'd met her, Sakura, unharmed as she was and instead this sweet, funny, witty, beautiful girl she has become?

What If he had taken her out on a date, like girls like Sakura deserved? And made her laugh the way she's laughing now at a stupid joke Naruto is telling? And held her hand and brought a pretty flush to her face, and kissed her on the cheek like you should on first dates, according to TV shows and shit?

What If he brought her home to meet his family?

Sakura is playing a video game now, he sees, accepting Kiba's challenge and she is doing terribly, but seems unaffected by her failure. Instead she laughs freely, honestly, tears of mirth spilling from her crinkled up eyes and he doubts she even notices how rumpled her hair is, how her nail polish is chipped and that her skirt is askew. She is happy now, happy in the moment.

He wishes she was happy all the time.

He wishes he could make her happy all the time.

What If.

What If is useless, he knows. What If won't bring his parents back, won't make him happy, won't make him suddenly able to make Sakura happy, won't make him the man he knows she deserves.

Absently, he knows his family would have loved her.

xoxoxo

"You're really going through with this?" Karin's voice is dubious.

"She made the deposit already, it'd be stupid not to." Ino is as blunt as ever.

"Aren't you scared?" Karin wants to know.

"Why should she be?" Ino scoffs.

"Sakura you're a total badass," Kiba says with a touch of reverence.

"Oh, Sakura-chan, totally!" Naruto pumps the air with his fist.

Sakura is filled with confidence and fear. What she is doing is crazy, out of line, and completely unexpected for someone like her.

That's why she's doing it, that and a million other reasons, and her determination to changeimprovetry outweighs any self-doubt. For once, Sakura is a master of herself, of her emotions, of her fears, and while there is some nervousness, there is resolution as she lays on her right side of the tattoo artist's leather chair, her shirt tugged up to just beneath her breasts.

The tattoo artist prepares the ink and needles on a table that looks like the kind she will take operating tools off of when she's finally a doctor, and Sakura smiles. Someday, she will make marks on a patient's skin the way he is marking up her side.

"I'm not afraid," she says fearlessly, bluntly, and her eyes find Sasuke's, and he looks bored as he always does, but he's smirking a little bit. She likes to think it's because he's proud of her, so she doesn't question it.

The process is longer than she thought it would be, and it's painful, but eventually the burning dulls to a throb and she's quite good at managing the consistency of a dull wound. She does not look at the slow but sure progress like her friends do, preferring to be surprised and trying to map out what it looks like mentally based on the feel of the needles.

He fills in color at her insistence. She wants this to be over and done with all at once, and Naruto and Kiba applaud her for "taking it like a man," and Ino is jealous and Karin is impressed and Sasuke stands there and watches and is quiet, and two hours later, Sakura gets a look at her new, first, shocking tattoo.

It is a long vine, winding from her upper thigh to her rib cage, with her favorite flowers (violets, not cherry blossoms, contrary to popular belief) painted beautifully along the vine, tiny leaves embellished along her skin and even though her side is red and raw, she absolutely loves it.

It is impractical. It is the last thing a girl putting herself through college and medical school and life should splurge on. It is not overly meaningful, it is just something Sakura wanted to do for herself and now she's done it and her friends love it but most of all, _she_ loves it. She is happy with her decision to do something spontaneous, and now she has a sexy tattoo to show for it.

Sakura is giddy as hell that evening and able to dispel the ache in her side through her happiness. Her friends hang out for awhile in her room before dispersing one by one. Sasuke goes to leave last, but stops in the doorway.

"Need something?" she asks brightly, too happy to acknowledge any lingering awkwardness between them since their almost-kiss two nights prior.

Sasuke is quiet as he looks at her, and he moves towards her. Sakura blinks up at him, wondering at his actions, and her breath tightens and chokes off in her throat when his fingers flirt with the hem of her shirt.

She feels no fear at this intimacy, something that amazes her, considering her crippling fear of being touched by practically everyone. Instead, she is puzzled by it, as if watching from somewhere outside her body as Sasuke lifts her shirt high enough to show some of her new tattoo.

His fingers ghost over one of the violets lingering beneath her ribcage. Heat explodes in Sakura's abdomen, arousal gripping her like an iron fist, and she looks up to Sasuke for explanation, unconsciously drawing closer to him.

"The others didn't see this, did they?" he asks softly, and she manages to tear her gaze away from his face to notice where he's touching.

Comprehension dawns on her, and she giggles.

"Guess nothing gets past you," she says teasingly.

Sasuke has noticed it when the others didn't, a little embellishment the tattoo artist made upon her secret request. At first glance, the violet looks like the other ones, but Sasuke's dark eyes do not miss the tiny kanji inscribed inside one of the petals, that reads "Hope."

He looks at her in silent expectation. Sakura is not free of her arousal, but like so many other things, she manages it. She does not draw closer, but she does not back away, and neither does he.

"I wanted to remember it," she says eventually. His touch is gentle, impossibly gentle on her tender skin, has not moved. Absently, she wants to remember this as well. "I wanted to know that no matter who can see it or can't, that there's always hope, and...I don't know. A little reminder to myself. You know? Permanent, like hope should be. I think."

Sasuke nods. He accepts her explanation, and there is a slight smile on his face, lopsided, one of his lips tilted higher than the other like they need to be recalibrated, but he is as painfully gorgeous as ever as he says, "Aa."

And in that word that isn't even a word, Sakura knows he understands.

She's coming scarily close to loving him, and when he takes back his hand and returns to his room, she thinks maybe she already does.

The idea is frightening, so Sakura focuses instead on the success of her first ever tattoo, and is thankful that Sasuke understands her, at least somewhat.

xoxoxo

The door is closed between them. The hallway is deserted, everyone already in bed, and Sasuke stands alone outside her room, trembling, his head resting on the door as he fights to regain control of himself.

_Fuck,_ he thinks. His heart races, and lust grips him so strongly it's a wonder he hasn't kicked in her door yet. _Fuck what the fuck am I doing?_

It had been impossibly hard for him, watching the tattoo artist with his hands on Sakura earlier that day. He'd been overcome by jealousy and anger, for this undeserving scum touching the girl he'd unconsciously marked as his own. His jealousy, he knew, was irrational, he knew that the artist was only doing his job, but rationale flew out the window when it came to Sakura.

He couldn't put his hands on her, so no one else could either.

What he'd done was stoked the fire that burned within him. His fingers ghosted over her skin and it was all he could do not to show her exactly what she meant to him, in exactly what way; her abdomen was completely flat with the barest hint of muscles from her strict dance training, her skin absurdly soft. He couldn't stop himself from imagining what it would feel like, to trail his fingers from her stomach, up between the valley of her breasts, back down between her legs to see if she felt as hot there as he thought she might...

Sasuke fights to control himself. He is torturing himself with what he can never have, what he will never do enough in his life to deserve. He is on a strict diet but tempting himself with the sweetest of delicacies. He knows Sakura is not his but he wants her all the same.

His hands are clenched into fists, knuckles bleached, nails digging into the palms of his hands hard enough to hurt, and the pain is somehow enough to anchor him to reality. Sakura is heaven and hell to him, everything he ever wanted and everything he can never have. She is fire: beautiful and consuming, tempting to touch and tame but impossible to predict, prevent, control.

He is losing his mind, he knows, standing in the hallway shaking like a leaf and trying not to choke. She is stripping him of everything he is, of his apathy, of his detachment, of his barriers. She is tearing him apart, cutting and reshaping him into something new, unidentifiable.

_Who am I now, Sakura?_ he thinks, loving and loathing her in varying measure. _What will I be, when there's nothing left to remake? What do you WANT from me?_

_What do I do when there's nothing left?_

xoxoxo

Sakura is watching her favorite movie one cozy Saturday night.

Everyone is partying that evening, and normally, she would be out with them, but a slight headcold has her feeling more lethargic than usual. She decides that an early night in, just sweatpants and a hoodie and fuzzy socks and her blankets and pillows and Humphrey and Ingrid and a bowl of ramen, is exactly what she needs.

She loses herself in another time, adores the way Rick calls Ilsa "kid," adores the way they love each other more than anything. Her heart breaks for them, for the moment when Rick surrenders his claim to Ilsa, because he loves her enough to want what's best for her, even when what's best for her is another man, another life.

She hopes someday she will find someone like that, someone who loves her beyond himself.

She hopes someday she will love herself enough to know she deserves it.

For now, though, she watches old time movies and lets herself dream.

She is dozing slightly when the sluggish knocking comes, startling her right out of her skin. She is briefly terrified before remembering she is safe behind this door, and she carefully calls out, "Who is it?"

"Sasuke."

His voice is deep but slurred, and Sakura quickly stands up and opens the door to find Uchiha Sasuke standing in the threshold, his eyes tinted red, his posture slouched, the burning smell of vodka heavy on him, and Sakura begins to giggle.

"You're drunk," she observes.

"Hn," he mumbles back, and he staggers inside, tripping slightly on the plush area rug before collapsing on her bed.

Sakura is amused and overwhelmed with fondness for him all at once. She shuts the door again and locks it before returning to her bed, where Sasuke is lying facedown in her pillows.

"You need to have some water," she says sternly. "And eat something. Here, hang on..."

"I'm fucking drunk, Sakura," he slurs, voice muffled as he speaks into the pillow. "Jesus. Fucking drunk."

"I know." She grabs a bottle of water from her mini fridge and a packet of peanut butter crackers and helps him sit up. "You need to have some water so you don't dehydrate. Drink."

She likes the way he listens to her, when he normally would have rolled his eyes at her bossiness and called her annoying. He downs the entire bottle and the empty plastic is tossed carelessly away from him; he does not eat the crackers, but Sakura is content that he has something in his body to dilute the alcohol.

"Any reason you came to my den of sickness instead of going back to your room?" Sakura asks teasingly as she sits on the edge of her bed.

"You're here." His reply is immediate, and it's unguarded, and Sakura is stunned. Another rush of fondness, and she reaches out and brushes his sweaty hair out of his face.

"Can I stay?" Sasuke asks. He looks at her with unfocused eyes, and even though he's over six feet tall, even though his shoulders are broad and his muscles are hard and his voice is deep and he is more a man than a boy, he reminds her of a child. Shy and lost and needy.

Sakura knows then, that she loves him.

"Yes," she replies softly. "Here, come on, take off your shoes. And your jacket, I have a space heater. You'll be warm enough, I promise."

Sakura does not know what it's like to have a loving mother, or an older sister, or anyone in the world to take care of her, but she tries her best to do this for Sasuke. He does not argue as she helps him out of his stifliing varsity jacket. He kicks off his shoes obediently, and when Sakura lifts the warm cottony blankets, he slides beneath them without comment or struggle or debate.

He lays down on the pillow and exhales deeply through his nose. Sakura watches as his muscles relax, and goes to her closet to grab her spare blankets so she can set up a bed for herself, on the floor.

Sasuke's voice stops her, still slurring slightly but as jarringly clear as ever.

"What are you doing?"

She looks up at him and replies, "Setting up a bed for myself, what's it look like?" Her weak attempt at humor falls flat.

"Don't be stupid," Sasuke scoffs. Drunk as he is, he retains all arrogance, and Sakura both loves and hates that about him. "Get in bed."

"I can't!"

"Tch. Sakura you're annoying."

"I don't want to get you sick! I have a cold, remember?"

The excuse is pathetic and drunk Sasuke sees through it as easily as sober Sasuke. His eyes soften somewhat even as he spits out, "I'm not gonna hurt you. Get in bed. You'll get sicker sleeping on the floor. Jesus fuck."

Sakura knows it's a Bad Idea. She knows a lot about Bad Ideas, and this has Bad Idea written all over it.

But the night is long and Sasuke is here and he's warm and he's making her laugh without meaning to. And he is here because he wants to be here, because that's what he said and Sasuke does not lie like she does. He is only ever truthful. And he pats the space next to him impatiently and calls her stupid and annoying and she _loves him_.

He needs her right now. Even if he says he's looking out for her because she's sick, Sasuke is here because he needs her the way she needs him sometimes, when she's at her most vulnerable. This is Sasuke, vulnerable like she has never seen him, and Sakura loves him and it's exactly that that makes her climb back into bed.

He lays behind her, her back resting lightly against his chest as they both find space on the mattress. Sakura's muscles are stiff as the unfamiliar sensation of sharing her bed with a man overwhelms her, and she finds it impossible, for once in her life, to concentrate on Ilsa's confession to Rick in the room above the bar.

In that moment, all she knows is Sasuke, breathing deep and even behind her, and when he wraps an arm loosely, languidly around her waist, as if he does it all the time, as if there's nothing strange about it, she bites her lip hard enough to sting.

_Don't get your hopes up,_ she thinks harshly. _Don't get excited about this. He's drunk, that's all. He's drunk and you're the only one in for the night, that's why he's here. No other reason. It's just like sharing a bed with Ino. Just friends, Sakura. Just friends, you stupid girl._

_He'll never want you._

But Sakura's mantras don't work right now. Sakura relaxes against her will. It's impossible not to, when Sasuke is as warm as her space heater, and he's cuddling with her like a boyfriend might, and his breath fans against her ear from behind and her room smells like vodka and cold medicine and the boy of her dreams.

Sasuke is sleeping already, and Sakura is not far behind.

The movie ends with no one to press Stop.

xoxoxo

**note..** For those of you who don't know, the movie Sakura's referencing is Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, AKA my favorite movie of all time. If you haven't seen it, you need to. Rick Blaine is the only man I'd leave my fiancee for that doesn't play for Philadelphia. GO WATCH CASABLANCA. Love you :)


	12. Family

Sasuke isn't quite awake.

He has yet to open his eyes, and in the back of his mind, he is vaguely aware that his head hurts. Not terribly, but a dull ache, relic of a hangover. Usually, he rises as soon as he stirs, but today, something compels him to battle off wakefulness and rest a bit longer.

Still, his finely-tuned senses register that something is amiss. Even though he is drifting in that haze between sleep and waking, he becomes aware that he is not in his room at all. The stale odor of sweat and unwashed clothes, relic of sharing a room with Uzumaki Naruto, is missing, replaced instead with something clean and floral and impossibly intoxicating. He detects cinnamon as well, feminine but not cloying, catered almost exclusively to his personal tastes.

The aroma is so pleasing that he opens his eyes to identify its source. The light, muted from gray skies outside, has him squinting until he adjusts, and he blinks a few times and looks around, and doesn't understand what he sees.

Tidy room. Books set up neatly on a desk, pictures of people he doesn't know on the walls. An old TV, a well-stocked closet full of shoes.

And the most damnable evidence of all: a sleeping beauty nestled in his arms, a peaceful smile on her face, pink hair splayed across the pillow they're both sharing.

Sasuke is gripped by arousal and worry in equal measure. He knows, judging from the headache behind his eyes and the memories that are returning to him slowly but surely, that he was drinking the previous night. He does not recall how he ended up in Sakura's room, least of all in her bed, but he hopes, for both of their sakes, that in his drunkenness, he has not crossed any boundaries.

_I'd know,_ he thinks, trying to convince himself as he stares at Sakura's face. _I'd know if I...if we..._

He cannot finish the thought even in his own mind. His slow burn for Sakura simmers beneath the surface, flaring to painful altitudes at times when she stands too close, or smiles too bright, or says something low and throaty. In this situation, trapped between her warm, soft body and the wall and lying under her blankets, his arms wrapped around her, he cannot afford to lose control.

So he forbids himself from even thinking that he overstepped any lines the previous night, and refocuses on regulating his breathing.

She's snuggled up against him, head tucked neatly between his neck and shoulder. Calm, relaxed breathing, completely unlike his own, indicates that she is still fast asleep, and the peaceful little smile on her face softens something inside him. One of his hands has slipped beneath her shirt somehow, and rests comfortably on her abdomen; the taut muscles flex beneath his palm with each breath she takes, the skin impossibly smooth, and Sasuke screws his eyes shut.

_Move your hand,_ he urges himself. _Move it. This has to stop._

But he cannot bring himself to. The thought of dragging his rough fingers slowly across her skin has his stomach tightening with desire. Unbidden, flashes appear in his mind, of fantasies he has never entertained with any conviction...he wonders what she will do, if he kisses her neck, if he runs his tongue along her skin, if he shifts his hand from her stomach lower and lower, if she will be hot there, ready for him...

White hot heat explodes within him and Sasuke's arousal hits him like a bolt of lightning. Sakura is temptation in its purest form, innocent where she lays beside him, trusting him enough to sleep in his presence, but provoking him without meaning to. She is impossibly, untouchably beautiful, and Sasuke forces himself to remember that she is so far above him that to even consider touching her is base treachery.

He is embroiled in sin and darkness, in bitterness and acrimony. To lay such dirty hands on someone as innately _good_ as Sakura screams sacrilege.

_How did I end up here?_ he asks himself wildly. He has frozen completely, hardly daring to breathe as he fights for some semblance of composure. _How did I end up here, with her, in her bed? What the hell happened last night? What did I do?_

Sakura shifts slightly, a pile of pink hair sliding forward from her pillow, slipping down her shoulder like water and brushing lightly against his chest. The feel of it, like satin, makes him desperate. One hand is fighting a losing battle to keep still placed against her stomach, and the other, resting on the mattress on Sakura's side, twitches to move through her wavy hair, to test its softness, to-

"Sas'ke?"

He stiffens and looks down to see sleepy green eyes, mint-colored and shimmering gold at the center, focus blearily on his face. Her lips are slightly parted, her cheeks flushed. He has never seen anything remotely as alluring, and he answers her siren's call with years of trained apathy.

"Hn."

"Morning," she mumbles sleepily, and Sasuke is somewhat pleased to see that she does not seem upset by his presence, angered or surprised, offended or repulsed. He knows what she has been through, and understands that the presence of a man in her bed could be cause for anxiety, but she smiles and wishes him good morning instead.

She trusts him. The knowledge of this floors him. _Stupid girl,_ he thinks, suddenly, inexplicably angry. _Stupid, stupid girl, did you learn nothing? You can't trust me. I can't even trust myself._

"Do you feel better?" The question is sweet and affectionate, and Sasuke nods stiffly; he cannot bring himself to speak.

"You were really drunk last night," she says by way of explanation. She sits up, his hand sliding from her bare stomach back to the mattress as she stretches and shakes the sleep from her eyes. "You should eat something."

"Sakura, I..."

Sasuke trails off. She looks back at him with innocent, naive eyes, prompting him to continue.

"Did...I didn't..."

She smiles. It's gentle, and kind, but tinged with something else, something like disappointment. "No. No, you were a perfect gentleman. A perfect _drunk_ gentleman. You wanted to sleep here, so I let you. Nothing happened."

The disappointment in her eyes is confusing. It makes no sense to him, even as she stands from the bed, rolls her shoulders once, and repeats, "Nothing happened," almost to herself.

And Sasuke recognizes that emotion. It's regret. Regret is something he's become excruciatingly familiar with over the course of his life.

Seeing her move further and further away from him, he feels it all over again.

xoxoxo

Not a word is spoken of last night.

Sakura wonders if this is what a one-night stand feels like. She sits across from Sasuke in the dining hall and they are both silent, and neither one of them dare to make eye contact. Irrationally, she feels as though she's committed some cardinal sin; as though she and Sasuke slept together in a drunken stupor, and all that's left is the shame.

"You have a game today, right?" she says. She knows he does, but the silence between them is crushing, and she says it just to break the tension.

He looks up at her, something inscrutable in his dark, dark eyes, and murmurs, "Aa. At four."

"Good," she replies with a shaky smile. Stupid, what a stupid thing to say, but she is starving right now for intellectual conversation, and coming up short. Now that he's looking at her, instead of fixated on his breakfast, she feels messy and unprepared, skittish and nervous. "I'm sure you'll win."

"You work today?" Sasuke asks.

"Yeah. Five till close. I'll miss the game unfortunately but I'm sure Ino and Naruto will catch me up on it."

"When's close."

"Eleven tonight. Not sure why a coffee shop's open so late, but-"

"Wait for me. I'll walk you."

Sakura blushes. She tells herself, or she tries to anyway, that there is no hidden meaning behind it, no ulterior motive, no delicious secret agenda. It is just Sasuke, who is just her friend, and he is just walking her back to her dorm from the coffee shop so she doesn't have to do it alone. Any friend would do it for any friend.

The romantic implications are not lost on her, but she knows better than to trust in them.

"You don't have to do that," she replies automatically. A knee-jerk reaction. "It's late and you'll be tired from your game and-"

"Quiet. Wait for me."

Sasuke manages to look bored, annoyed, long-suffering, and deeply, thoroughly inconvenienced all at once, which only makes Sakura like him, want him, more. He is gorgeous first thing in the morning, something she can now say honestly is true; waking up to his dark eyes watching her, hearing his racing heart beneath her ear, his calloused palm pressed intimately against her stomach...

Sakura realizes that she was wrong about herself. She has labored for so long under the delusion that her sexuality was erased after That Night; her anxiety around men, her restlessness, her inability to trust in others and her inability to trust in herself, all of them contributed to the belief that she will simply never be able to have a normal relationship with a man. She was tainted, sullied, ruined beyond any hope for repair, and not only was her innocence stripped away from her, but also her desire.

She was wrong.

She was suppressing her feelings, her urges, her attractions, and she was very good at it, but by no means were they eradicated.

Sasuke found new ways to arouse her every day, without even trying. A simple look had her stomach tightening in class, an arrogant smirk caused a warmth to bloom between her legs, a foreign warmth but not an unwelcome one, an accidental nudge against her shoulder on the way to class had her blushing and picturing what he could do with those rough, calloused hands...

She wants Sasuke, she realizes. Wants him above her and below her and inside her.

The knowledge of this complicates her resolve to relegate him to the role of friend-only.

And when he picks her up from her shift that night, tired from his game and freshly-showered with his hands in his pockets, that complicates things as well.

xoxoxo

Parents Day is here.

Ino is visiting with her mother and father, boastfully showing off her accommodations at Konoha University as they swell with pride. Shikamaru's parents show up too. Kiba's mother and older sister. Everyone has someone.

Sasuke sits alone on the little bench at K-Quad and tells himself he isn't bitter.

He tells himself he is grown now. Far past the age where it would be reasonable to pine for what others had: a loving, _living_ family to share this special day with. He tells himself that to resent others for having what he lost is foolish. Does not bring back the esteemed Uchiha family. Does not fill the void in his heart.

He tells himself all sorts of lies.

His eyes trace the different families in something like longing, tinged with bitterness, accented heavily with anger but simmering in regret. So he buries all of those things beneath resentment, and entertains the idea of returning to his dorm room (empty, because Naruto is away visiting his girlfriend Hinata back home) to brood in private, away from all this camaraderie and happiness and everything he has been denied for the past decade.

Instead, he is surprised to find he is no longer alone at his bench. He looks up to see Sakura, dressed in a tiny denim skirt with black nylons that make her legs stretch on for miles, and a gray sweater that slopes off her shoulder and boots that frame her legs and her hair is curled and her makeup is perfect and she is smiling beneath all of it, tentatively and with something he receives almost none of these days:

Empathy. Not a shallow imitation, not pity, empathy's disfigured cousin, but empathy itself, in its truest form.

Sasuke realizes he is not alone on Parents Day.

"Your parents aren't coming," she says needlessly. She knows why. She does not know the sordid Uchiha family details, but she knows that they are deadgonenevercomingback. "Mine aren't either." She explains nothing more; he does not know anything about the Haruno family, because Sakura has not confessed that to him yet. He wonders if she ever will. "So I was thinking..."

Here her smile turns shy, and Sasuke raises an eyebrow.

"Maybe...we could be each other's family today."

Sasuke is shocked. The sentiment is so sweet, so aggressively touching, that all he can do is stare at Sakura. Little, five-foot-nothing Sakura, dressed impeccably, styled perfectly, smilingsmilingsmiling and only real to him, has proposed something so perfect in such a fucked up way, that all he can think is how it's just like she is: perfect and fucked up all at once.

He knows for sure, in that moment, that he loves her, and he shakes his head, smirking with a mixture of fondness and annoyance at this new piece of knowledge. His love for her will only complicate their already tenuous relationship, but he is resolved to enjoy it as long as he can. Resigned to his fate, as it were. Resigned to lose himself to love for a broken girl from a broken home with a broken heart.

So he looks at his "family," who eyes him back nervously, awaiting his acceptance or rejection, and sighs and stands up.

"Annoying," he says, but it sounds more affectionate than anything. "Come on."

And the day is spent at the movie theater in town, which is running one of Sakura's favorite films, The Philadelphia Story, something Sasuke has never seen before and won't admit to her after viewing it that he likes it. And the day is spent sharing falafel at a Middle Eastern restaurant down the street from the theater, and catching the tail end of a baseball game midway through the playoffs at a local bar. And the night is spent back in Sakura's dorm room, listening to music and arguing each song on her iPod until they can compromise on something, and when they wake up on her bed, in one another's arms the next morning, which is NOT Parents Day, there is no lingering awkwardness at all.

It isn't a date, because it's so much more than that. It's family. It's friendship.

They are friends. Sasuke and Sakura are friends.

But when black eyes meet green eyes in the wan hours of the morning, when sunlight streams through the blinds and large hands are curled around soft curves and they breathe together, the line between friends and something more becomes blurrier.

Sakura is his friend, Sasuke decides.

She is also the prospect of something more.

And he wonders if that prospect isn't something worth pursuing.

xoxoxo

Sasuke doesn't know it.

He falls asleep first, during a Two Door Cinema Club song, and so he doesn't know what she does.

She watches him fondly, eyes sweeping across his face _painting his face with her eyes,_ like Ilsa did with Rick, memorizing each contour of his skin. He is angular, classic good looks coupled with an almost aristocratic handsomeness that leaves him in a league of his own. Almost tragically beautiful. But sleeping, he could be a child, innocent and carefree and above all, at peace. There is no sadness in his sleep.

And so he doesn't know it, when Sakura leans in and presses her lips chastely against his cheek. A soft, butterfly kiss that makes her smile, and makes her smile more when Sasuke leans closer to her in his sleep. And she decides that she loves him in that moment, and that it's okay he doesn't love her back, because he's here right now. He's here with her, and she will treasure him, and she will treasure their time together and whatever he's willing to give her, and she will lovehimlovehimlovehim unselfishly and without any expectation.

And she will sneak kisses when he isn't awake, just because he's there and just because she can.

Sakura sleeps.

And Sakura doesn't know that Sasuke wasn't sleeping to begin with.

No one ever really catches Uchiha Sasuke off guard. And Sakura doesn't know that. And Sasuke, cheeks burning and heart racing and blood pumping, will never tell her.

xoxoxo

**note..** Happy to see so many Casablanca fans! Bogart owns my heart. If you haven't seen The Philadelphia Story, I recommend it times a billion. My favorite comedy. Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Katharine Hepburn (my idol) and set in the greatest city in the US. _Philly, y'all._ Go watch it!

Love you guys. Thanks, as always, for the support. You're all Bogarts and Hepburns to me! :)


	13. Resistance

Naruto is more astute than people give him credit for, and it is a fact about his best friend that Sasuke consistently forgets.

It is during a weight-lifting session when Naruto reminds him.

"You're into Sakura-chan, aren't you?"

Sasuke doesn't react; this is not the first time Naruto has brought this up, but it is the first time he is serious while doing so. He calmly lifts the gargantuan weight while Naruto spots him, waiting for an answer.

"We're friends," Sasuke replies robotically, automatically, a knee-jerk response because it's true, but it feels closer to a lie. Yes they are friends, but somehow the term feels empty, diluted, like there isn't enough to it, or at least as much as there should be.

"Be serious, teme," Naruto says sharply.

The urgency in his best friend's tone rattles him, and he rests the barbell in annoyance and stands up to face him.

"I _am_ serious. When does this shit stop?" Sasuke is getting angry.

"When you start being honest with yourself. I'm your best friend, just answer the question. Do you like Sakura-chan?"

"It''s none of your business," Sasuke replies coldly, but the response is childish even to his own ears, and ineffectual. He should have denied it, but Sasuke is, first and foremost, painfully honest, and he cannot bring himself to lie. Not about Sakura.

Naruto sees it right away, and his blue eyes are wide with wonder.

"I knew it!" he exclaims, a wide smile stretching his serious face, triumph in his eyes. "Man, I never thought I'd see the day...you didn't give a shit about any of the girls back home who threw themselves at you, we all just thought you were asexual or something but turns out you just had real specific taste!"

Sasuke says nothing. He breathes heavily, half from his workout, half from this stressful conversation. His situation with Sakura is tenuous; he knows he is not ready for her to know how he feels about her, that he doesn't want her to ever find out, and now Naruto knows. The thought is unsettling, and Sasuke masks his unease beneath a manageable emotion: anger.

"I'm not gonna tell her!" Naruto laughs, seeing the look on his best friend's face. "That's up to you, idiot. But you might wanna get a move-on, is all I'm saying."

Sasuke raises an eyebrow.

"Tons of guys are into Sakura-chan," Naruto explains, leaning against the machine and taking a long swig of water from a water bottle. "Kiba thinks the sun shines out of her ass, he's been trying to hook up with her since he met her."

Sasuke stiffens. This is news to him. He knows Kiba well, having grown up with him, and knows his soft spot for pretty girls; he knows he flirts with Sakura, but beyond that, he was unaware that Kiba was so serious about it.

"The good news is, you guys are together so often that most guys think you're together and back off," Naruto continues. "But since you haven't made it official..."

"There's nothing to make official," Sasuke grinds out stiffly. It's suddenly extremely, unbearably hot in the gym. "She's..."

"Smart? Funny? Hilarious? Magnificent? Beautiful?"

"Not interested," Sasuke finishes.

"How do you know? Did she tell you?"

"Hn."

"Geez, man, you're the _only_ guy she hangs out with one on one and you guys are _always _together! Sure she's into you! Why don't you just go for it?"

Naruto is every bit the supportive best friend, the faithful wing man. But Sasuke resents the hell out of his interference. His relationship with Sakura (or lack thereof) is entirely his business, and must evolve at his own pace. The constant needling from his friends to take things a step further is abrasive, ill-timed, and unhelpful. If anything, it serves as a barricade between he and Sakura.

"I'm done with this," Sasuke says with a glare. He grabs his duffel bag, annoyed because he is nowhere near through with his workout but needs to leave anyway, and makes a beeline for the door.

Behind him, Naruto calls out, "She won't wait forever, teme!"

And Sasuke knows that's true, but he also knows it doesn't matter. Regardless of what he feels for Sakura, he is wrong for her. He does not deserve her.

The fact that she is becoming harder and harder to resist crosses his mind briefly, but like so many other things, he shoves it away as he stalks out of the gym and into the late autumn sunlight.

xoxoxo

"Your boyfriend is _gorgeous,_" sighs Ami, a fellow barista at The Bean, and Sakura freezes mid-latte.

She does not like Ami much, but she has to work with her, so she enacts civility, but she prefers socializing with other workers like Temari, an upperclassman, and Sai, who calls her Ugly for some reason and makes her laugh. Right now, though, it's just her and Ami on a slow Wednesday morning.

"I don't have a boyfriend," Sakura replies automatically. But she already knows Ami knows that.

Ami's eyes widen theatrically. "Really? That means...Sasuke-kun's single?"

Sakura grits her teeth and says nothing. She returns her attention to the latte she's making for an impatient customer, but the anger that grips her heart makes it difficult to portion out the correct amount of caramel. She does not like Ami, and she does not like the way Ami calls Sasuke "Sasuke-kun" like she has any right. He does not belong to her, she should not be calling him such an affectionate name like they are connected so closely, like he-

"Think you can get us together, then?" Ami asks excitedly. "If I give you my number, can you pass it on to him?"

Sakura slams the latte in front of the customer with more force than necessary, and amends the awkward situation with a bright winning smile; the woman walks away looking miffed, but Sakura can't bring herself to care.

"Um, hello?" Ami prods. "Come on, Sakura, if you're not gonna make a move then at least clear the way for someone else to!"

And even though Sakura doesn't like Ami, and even though she doesn't think Sasuke will like her either, and even though it hurts her heart to even imagine a girl with Sasuke that isn't her, Sakura realizes that Ami is right.

She is jealous and possessive of Sasuke, but for what? He is not interested in her romantically, therefore she has no right to stake a claim on him like she even has a chance. If anything, her constant presence at his side must act as a deterrant to other girls who _could_ deserve Sasuke in the way she never will.

The idea that she is standing between him and prospective happiness is more repulsive than the idea of hooking him up with Ami.

"Sure I can give him your number," she replies, and she is pleased to hear that her voice is even. She sounds calm and collected, and she barely hears Ami's squeal of delight over the roaring in her ears.

Sakura loves Sasuke. She loves him enough to let him go, she loves him enough to step aside, even when it feels like her slowly-mending heart is shattering all over again. She loveshimloveshimloveshim, but she knows that she does not deserve him, and cannot make him as happy as he needs to be. She lacks the necessary requirements from the inside out.

So she records Ami's number in her cell phone. And she requests to leave work early on the premise of having a lot of homework to do. And she returns to her dorm room a few minutes later and criescriescries her heart out, knowing that even though this is the right thing to do, it still hurts so damn bad.

xoxoxo

Sasuke can't find Sakura. He needs help preparing financial statements for his Accounting class; he can pump out income statements and statements of retained earnings like it's nothing, but there are so many different categories to remember for the balance sheet that even his stubborn pride can't justify plowing forward blindly.

But she isn't in her room when he knocks on the door.

He stops by The Bean, under the nonchalant premise of buying a coffee (contrary to popular belief, he takes it with cream), but a quick scan of the employees working there confirms that she is off, or has left early.

She isn't in the gym, either, nor the library, and she isn't answering her phone. Sasuke is irritated, but he is also worried. Sakura isn't one to just vanish without a trace; when she isn't with him, she is with Ino. Or Naruto. Or a big group or a small group but Sakura, he knows, does not like to be alone for very long.

On a whim, he decides to check the performance art hall. It's a place he never visits because it holds no interest for him, watching musical theater or listening to amateurish operatic arias sung by half-talent undergrads encouraged by professors who are only professors because they couldn't succeed in the business themselves. But he knows Sakura's burning passion for dance, and knows it's a shot in the dark, but steps into the auditorium anyway.

There's music playing. Something classical. He recognizes the melody but could never place the composer. There's something heartbreakingly sad about it, and even though Uchiha Sasuke is not one to melt over music, something in his chest constricts painfully between the sweep and swell of the strings and the agonizingly soft crescendo of the piano.

She's onstage. She looks remarkably out of place, confined to a smaller space towards the front what with the half-finished set pieces for the 2012 revival of _Les Miserables_ scattered helter-skelter across the stage, but the raw emotion in her eyes makes her look right at home, all at once. Her pink hair is tied into a tight ponytail, bangs pinned back to hide nothing of her face. She's wearing a sports bra and a pair of tight spandex shorts and tiny ballet slippers. And she's in a pose that looks effortless, and Sasuke is struck by the sheer, unapologetic honesty of the moment.

This is Sakura at her rawest, at her most vulnerable, at her strongest. This is Sakura herself, bare and exposed and so so _honest._ He sees her as if for the first time, and she is almost terrifyingly beautiful.

The auditorium is empty except for him and her. She has yet to realize she isn't alone, and Sasuke is content to just watch her, to see what she's doing. He remains hidden in the shadows of the empty audience as the music builds to a swell and Sakura shifts her position. Her left leg lifts off the floor, toes pointed as she adopts a stance he has only ever seen on television. Recognizing the strain of her muscles as she keeps the position locked, Sasuke sees that beyond dance being Sakura's passion, it is also her talent.

She is impossibly graceful. Each movement is executed flawlessly and fluidly as she shifts from one spot to the next, and Sasuke is reminded of water; never restless, never idle, calm at times and a tidal wave at others. He is rooted to the spot, captivated by what he sees. Chaos and catharsis, brutal truth and unhidden beauty.

For as spiritual as the moment is, it is equally sexual. Sasuke is a healthy eighteen-year-old boy, and his hormones react to the way she is moving. It is impossible to crush his arousal as his eyes hungrily rake across her body, the delicate muscles that flex in her abdomen (he recalls the way they felt as he held her while she slept), the strain of her breasts against the constricting top she's wearing (she's small, but her curves are appreciable.) The expression on her face as she moves seamlessly to the melody is akin to that of a ravished woman, eyes closed, lips slightly parted as if lost to some fantasy he can't begin to imagine.

His desire for her has never been so powerful. He can't bring himself to blink lest he disturb the fantasy. His hands twitch, impatient for the feel of her, determined to possess her in a way he has already told himself he cannot. His reasoning for keeping her at a distance has never felt farther away.

Abruptly, the music stops. Sakura drops to her knees, breathing heavily, exhausted. She wipes sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm and then tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Sasuke watches, transfixed, before she seems to sense that she is no longer alone, and her eyes meet his in the darkness of the auditorium.

"Oh," she says, surprised, and her cheeks flush, like she's embarrassed. "Um, hey, Sasuke."

"Hn," he replies, not trusting himself to say anything else.

"Did you...uh, need something? I got off work early, and I, um, wanted to...it's my solo, see, from ballet back in high school, and..."

She sounds bashful and somewhat ashamed, like she's been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. And if Sasuke were a different man, he would tell her that he has never seen anything so beautiful, so honest, so imperfectly perfect in his life. If he were a different man, he would tell her that she is talented beyond all reckoning, and that he could watch her for hours. If he were a man at _all,_ he would tell her what he truly thought of her impromptu performance.

But Sasuke is a scared little boy who's trying to do right by her, and to do that, he has to hold her at arm's length.

"Accounting homework," he says.

And the balance is restored. Sakura's dance feels more like a dream than reality anyway, and Sasuke resolves to forget it ever happened.

xoxoxo

They sit in the library together while Sakura explains the function of a balance sheet, how it incorporates the previous two statements and what are expenses and what comprises common stock and that dividends are payments to the shareholders.

It's quiet in their section, just the two of them huddled over a table with their books spread out in front of them. Sasuke's problem seems to be his inability to sort assets by liquidity, which can affect the whole equation and throw it out of sync.

She wonders if he knows he does the same thing to her, on a daily basis.

Being so close to him, inhaling his intoxicating scent, like warm baking bread and fire and wine, makes it difficult for her to concentrate. Knowing he has seen her dance, seen her at her most vulnerable, skews her focus until all that's on her mind is him.

"No," Sakura says, stopping him with a hand on his wrist as he attempts to write down the equation. "You have that listed as Accounts Receivable, but it's Accounts Payable. A liability, since it's money you owe."

His wrist stiffens beneath her fingers and she withdraws as though burned, afraid she might have offended him. She is surprised, though, to see his eyes locked on hers, more intense than usual and full of a strange fire that leaves her almost hungry.

A warmth blooms in her stomach. The muscles tighten.

"Accounts Receivable is an asset," Sakura attempts. Even as woefully inexperienced as she is, she knows that Sasuke's gaze on her is not innocent. It's full of something. It's a promise and a threat. "You've made the investment for services rendered, and now you're owed money."

"Why didn't you tell me how good you were?" Sasuke demands.

The question is unexpected. Sakura blushes all the way to her hairline and deflects, "At accounting? Hardly, I took a class in high school and I had a really good teacher, I only know the basics."

"Not accounting." He's impatient with her stalling, and his fingers close around her wrist instead. The effect is immediate, instantaneous; Sakura feels a jerk behind her navel and it's almost impossible to breathe as Sasuke stares her down. "You said you were a dancer. You never said how good you were."

She's flattered and pleased and completelymadlyinsanely aroused. He's drawing closer and closer, imperceptible at first, but it's impossible to miss the way his heated gaze drops to her lips before resettling on her eyes. She knows what that means, and the idea is as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

"Th-Thanks!" she stammers out. She is unable to move, in this uncomfortable wooden library chair beside Sasuke, who looks starving and absurdly alluring as he moves closer. In the background, there is the flutter of rustling book pages, the clicking of keys on a computer, the dull hum of a printer pumping out page after page of some student's thesis paper. Each noise is deafening for a library, and it sounds like a hurricane in her ears.

"I'm...I used to be a lot better. But I twisted my knee two years ago, and..." She breaks off, the memory of how the injury occurred flashing through her mind and making her stomach hurt. "...I can still dance but any hopes I had of taking it pro went out the window."

"How'd you hurt your knee."

Sasuke's questions aren't always questions. Sometimes they are questions with proper question marks, but most times they are statements that don't allow one the option of refusing to answer. He must have read the hesitation in her eyes, and she resents him for his intuition as much as she admires him for it.

"Accident," Sakura replies stiffly. She is still extremely aware of his grip on her wrist, but even as distracting as that is, she will not tell him the truth about it. Not yet, and maybe not ever. He is the person she is most honest to in all the world, but that does not entitle him to every secret she's ever had.

Sasuke seems to disagree.

His eyes narrow in suspicion as he leans in even closer, until his lips brush her ear in a way too gentle and fleeting to have been an accident. Sakura's breath catches in her throat as the warmth in her stomach spreads to her thighs. This is not the place for this, in the library of all places, and she opens her mouth to articulate that to Sasuke, but he speaks first.

"Such a _liar,_ Sakura," he breathes in her ear, his voice low and rumbling like thunder. Sakura gasps. Her heartbeat picks up until she's sure it's so loud and fast that he can hear it.

"Sasuke," she whispers.

She can see where it's going. Sasuke's lips brush against the shell of her ear again, his breath fanning the side of her neck and making her dizzy with desire. She knows. She knows that if he kisses her, she will break.

It's hard enough loving him, knowing she does not deserve his love; she will not let herself be further tempted, tortured by what she can never have because she's broken and messed up and fucked up in her head and body and a _shitshow_ of epic proportions.

So she turns her head away from him and murmurs, "My coworker Ami wants me to give you her number."

Sasuke's lips flirt against her neck before he stiffens.

"What."

He stops and draws back, gaze heated as he traces her face for an explanation. Stopping him for _that?_ Clearly he doesn't know her angle, and Sakura's fine with that. Better that he think her uninterested, than know the truth: that she is so well acquainted with her own unworthiness that to even attempt to take things further with Sasuke is borderline criminal.

"Watanabe Ami," she continues, her voice falsely cheerful and bright as she looks at him like nothing's happened. Sasuke stares at her, disgusted, but no more disgusted with her than she is with herself for allowing things to go that far. "She's a Cos major who works with me...thinks you're really good-looking. Who knows? You might hit it off."

Sasuke lets out a short, curt bark of a laugh that conveys how completely UN-funny he finds the whole situation. He grabs his backpack and shoves his books ruthlessly inside before zipping it up with unreasonable force. He stands up, the legs of his chair scraping harshly on the floor and drawing more than a few disapproving stares. Sakura looks up at him meekly, knowing she is responsible for his anger, and wants to cry.

"No thanks," he says coldly. "Tch."

And he storms out, and Sakura sits there and tells herself _This is for the best, this is for the best. He deserves better than you, he'll see that. And you'll pick up the pieces and move on._

Because that's all she's ever known.

And to think it might ever change is foolish.

xoxoxo

**note..** Love you guys. My Phils are on a four-game win streak right now, fingers crossed they can keep it going tonight in Chi-town! Halladay's pitching...Cubs beware. :)

And let's see, I already recommended Casablanca and The Philadelphia Story...today's Movie You Would Be Stupid Not To Watch is...All About Eve! Bette Davis is inhumanly good. What's YOUR favorite movie?


	14. Surrender

He'd tried to kiss her.

His resolve had flown completely out the window, he realizes now, as he stalks furiously away from the library. Sasuke isn't sure where he's going, nor is he sure where his head went. His noble decision to keep her at arm's length, to keep her away from the black hole that resides where his heart used to be, was powerless in front of balmy green eyes and pouty pink lips and a pretty rose blush.

He'd tried to kiss her.

Sasuke can't even see straight, he's so angry. Angry with Sakura for turning away, but mostly furious with himself for even trying in the first place. He is tampering with the malleable foundation of their friendship. He is testing the foundation, pushing limits, crossing lines.

Sasuke is such a fool, and he has no one to blame but himself.

He glances at his phone and sees that it's 8 o'clock now. 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night. He has an 8 AM class tomorrow, his homework isn't finished, but all he wants now is a drink.

Naruto and the others are more than willing to oblige him. Ten minutes later, he finds himself at a bar with his best friend, with Shikamaru and Kiba-who-he-hates-now and Chouji and Sai-who-works-with-Sakura and Neji, and Sasuke orders a hard drink from an easy bartender.

There is a playoff game on the big TV behind the bar. His friends around him, talking and yelling and drinking and shouting at the TV and hitting on the bar skanks and knocking back shot after shot provide a welcome distraction to the conflict roiling inside him like a cancer. But it is a shallow, fleeting distraction, one he knows will not last him the night.

He glares at the empty shot glass in his hand, tells himself he is an idiot, and orders another round.

xoxoxo

Sakura doesn't move for a long time.

She sits there at the table, heart racing, chest heaving, because _she almost kissed Sasuke._

It's not their first almost-kiss. That happened sitting on her bed, and it ended with Sasuke all but running out of her room with hell on his heels. But it IS their first almost-kiss that Sasuke _initiated._

Against her will, Sakura is somewhat exhilarated. She feels like she's just performed the best dance of her life, only to come in second at the competition. Cheated, somehow.

Sasuke wanted to _kiss_ her.

Despite knowing that it's a Bad Idea, despite knowing that she is toxic for him and that he deserves better, despite knowing that she deserves nothing at all from Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura is excited. _Thrilled,_ even. Sasuke had looked at her with desire in his eyes, with a promise on his lips as he whispered in her ear, his fingers tightening with surprising strength around her wrist as he leaned in closer...

She'd ruined the moment, of course, but that it had happened at _all_ is nothing short of amazing to her.

Sasuke can see her, she knows. He isn't like the shallow, blind boys who make eyes at her and tell her she's pretty and ask for her number, the ones who fall for the facade she employs rather than the hot mess she really is. So if Sasuke can see her, and still befriend her, and still hang out with her, and still want to kiss her?

Sakura shakes her head.

Just because he could be interested in her, doesn't mean he should be. She has no idea how to be a proper girlfriend, or even a proper lover. Her only sexual experience is limited to high school kisses, holding hands, and a horrific night she wishes she could lock away in her memories but can't.

She will take this small victory, this knowledge that, however temporarily, she has snagged Sasuke's interest, become the object of his desire. And she will leave it at that.

Content with her resolution, she packs up her books and leaves the library and ignores the curious stares from everyone who witnessed her altercation with Sasuke and when Ino calls to invite her to dinner, she goes with all the intention in the world of keeping what happened to herself. Her little secret with Sasuke.

And she hopes he isn't too angry with her.

xoxoxo

Sasuke is _so_ angry with her.

It's all he can focus on as he sits at the bar, knocking back a Yuengling and pointedly ignoring the fact that it's Sakura's favorite beer. The camaraderie of his friends is no longer a welcome distraction. It's background noise, the soundtrack to this continuous melodrama that's become his life, and Sasuke wonders where it all went so horribly wrong.

He had one goal when he came to college.

Uchiha.

The Uchiha are a legacy at Konoha University. His father attended. His brother attended. Their grandfather, great-grandfather, for generations. His aim is to earn his prelaw degree, go to law school, and become a lawyer just like his (deaddeaddead) family.

He left high school without the complication of a girl, and was on pace to do the same in college. Women were distractions. Troublesome. Not worth it.

And he'd went and found the one girl who was worth _everything._ And he'd done it on the very first day.

She is screwed up, he knows. She's been raped and it's made her anxious and scared and she feels like she isn't worth anything. She's never said it in so many words, but Sasuke misses almost nothing. He's gifted and cursed with intuition, and even though much of Sakura remains a fortress, he can see the bigger picture through the cracks in her concrete.

It isn't that she's uninterested in him, though that would certainly make things less complicated than they already are. If she wasn't into him, he would have no choice but to leave her alone, put his attraction to her on the back burner, let his secretburningsilent love for her fizzle into nothing and sequester her in the Friend Zone.

He can tell she's attracted to him. Whether her feelings have depth enough to match his is still a toss-up, but at the very least, there is a mutual attraction. Her reluctance to act on it speaks volumes about her mindset.

It's insecurity.

Sasuke has a new enemy. It's Sakura's self-perception, which is so skewed that she can't see what everyone else can see about her. She has known darkness and horror in her past and she now sees both in herself and Sasuke doesn't know how to fight that.

It's something he can't touch with his fists, nor scold with his words, nor banish with the fiercest glare his eyes can muster. It's as much an obstacle to Sakura's heart as an overprotective father, a possessive boyfriend, perhaps more so because Sakura's self-doubt cripples her ability to connect with others. It's intangible and all-powerful. Invisible and consuming.

_Fuck it,_ Sasuke thinks. _Fuck that._

He stands off the bar stool and isn't sure if his new resolve is born of revelation or rum, but at this point, he doesn't care.

His new mission is not to avoid Sakura, to keep her at arm's length and hopehopehope the torch he's carrying for her will burn out.

He will have her.

He will have her in every way, if he has to scream in her face how beautiful she is inside and out until she believes it herself.

"Hey, teme, whatsamatter?" Naruto asks, somewhat intimidated by the ferocity of Sasuke's expression.

"Dobe where's Sakura?" he asks, shrugging off his friend's question.

"Uh, I know the girls went out to eat tonight off-campus...Sakura-chan probably went with 'em."

"Where."

"The Mexican restaurant on Second Street...why are you-"

Sasuke doesn't wait. He doesn't care that it's started to rain and he doesn't care that it's a two-mile walk into town where the restaurant is and that Sakura is busy with her friends. He doesn't care Kiba groaning behind him and Chouji saying gleefully, "Pay up! I told you" because everyone's been betting on he and Sakura, it seems.

He's on a mission. And he will not lose.

xoxoxo

"...I mean, you wouldn't guess it to look at him, but Shikamaru's an _animal_ in bed," Ino says as they dig into a giant plate of fried ice cream.

"I believe it," Tenten says sagely.

"How?" Sakura wants to know.

"He's got long hair," she replies simply. "Guys with long hair are generally very sexual."

"Like Neji?" teases Karin.

"Yup." Tenten does not blush as she admits this about her quiet boyfriend. "Suigetsu's got longish hair, too."

"It's like banging a shark," Karin admits. "But Sasuke-kun's hair is pretty long, too. How 'bout it, Sakura? Care to contribute?"

Sakura blushes and hides it by taking an exceptionally large bite of ice cream and pretending to make a mess of her face. Dabbing her embarrassed smile with a napkin, she replies, "As if I'd know. For the eightieth time, we're just friends."

"Bullshit," Ino, Karin, and Tenten all say flatly.

"There's just no arguing with you!" Sakura tries for exasperation, but it comes out as amusement.

"We grew up with Sasuke, remember?" Ino sighs with an eye-roll, gesturing to herself and Karin, who belches unattractively and nods along. "And he's-you know what, idiot? I'm not going into this again. We told you how Sasuke is and how he acts with you, and you don't believe us, so whatever. Find out for yourself. Just make sure you let us know if he's dirty in bed like we think once he decides to give you his Uchiha pe-"

"On second thought," Karin interrupts, and she looks at something outside through her thick black glasses and smirks, "why don't you just go outside?"

Sakura frowns and follows Karin's line of sight, and to her shock, she sees a soaking wet Sasuke making his way towards the restaurant from across the street.

Well, shit.

xoxoxo

Sakura comes outside, and he is surprised how unfussy she is, standing in the rain without an umbrella or a hood. She's wearing a typical Sakura outfit: black nylons, a floral print dress, a little cardigan and leg-framing boots. She's frustratingly pretty, and it temporarily distracts him from his goal, before he lets liquid courage decide what he does next.

"Sasuke!" she says, and he is rewarded with the sight of her blush. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking you out tomorrow night," he snaps.

It isn't a fairytale romance. It isn't flowers and chocolates and the shy question Willyougooutwithme. It's Sasuke and Sakura, the way it's been for weeks and months and the potential for more.

Sakura's eyes widen.

"For what?" she asks weakly, stupidly.

Sasuke knows to be patient. This is new territory for both of them, and he can't push her. She isn't the kind of girl who can handle being rushed into anything, and he vows to let her set the pace just as long as she's willing to give him, _them_ a chance.

"A date," he replies curtly.

They are standing within arm's reach of one another, and Sasuke can make out the smattering of light freckles across her nose through the rain that's starting to fall thicker and heavier, and he tries to memorize the expression on her face. Shock, mixed with wonder, like he's the most amazing thing she's ever seen and also the most confounding. He feels the same way about her.

"You don't want to date me," Sakura whispers.

"I'll pick you up at eight."

"Sasuke-"

"We'll do it your way," he cuts her off, taking a step towards her. They're not touching, but they could be, if he removed his hands from his pockets. "As fast or as slow as you want, I don't care. But I'm done pretending like there isn't anything between us."

"I'm no good, Sasuke!" Sakura has tears in her eyes, and she raises her voice in distress. "You already know what I've been through, you don't need that!"

"Stop telling me what I need and what I want," he says harshly. "I'll pick you up at _eight,_ understand?"

"But-"

"Sakura."

She shuts up, protests dying in her throat, and she's absurdly lovely caught in the rainstorm. Such a mixture of beauty and imperfection, and he knows that she might consider herself a nightmare, but he thinks she's the girl of his dreams.

"As fast or as slow as you want," he repeats.

"Why are you doing this, Sasuke?" she asks, wincing, and she draws her arms across her stomach like she's trying to protect herself. "You don't have to. You could have any girl you wanted, you don't need to settle for me."

Nothing he's saying has any effect on her, and Sasuke tells himself to be patient, but his tolerance only goes so far. Words aren't working.

So he leans in, one hand curling behind her head and threading through her soaking pink hair, and he closes the distance between them and kisses her. It isn't harsh and demanding, the way he wants to kiss her. It's gentle. It's romantic. It's _potential._

Talking wasn't working.

xoxoxo

Sasuke tastes like mint and rum.

His lips are not rough against hers; the few fantasies she's allowed herself to entertain of kissing him involved a certain measure of roughness. Instead, he's soft and achingly gentle, like he's trying not to break her.

The sweetness of the kiss makes her want to cry, so she does, but she doesn't pull away and neither does he. His free hand comes to rest on her hip, and she tentatively raises her hands to grip the collar of his jacket as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss.

Despite its sweetness, there is a raw sensuality to this moment that Sakura cannot avoid. Desire burns within her like an inferno, building and building until her knees buckle, and Sasuke's firm grip on her is all that's keeping her up. A tiny moan escapes her throat and Sasuke's fingers tighten; they pull back, each breathing heavily, and Sakura is greeted for the second time that day by the sight of a thoroughly aroused Sasuke.

He looks like he's starving. His eyes scorch into her own, and going slow is suddenly the last thing she wants to do. She wants Sasuke's mouth on her again, not just on her lips but on her jaw, her neck, her stomach...she wants to feel his hands on her, not just her hip but starting at her ankles and working his way up. She wants his muscular weight pressing her down into her mattress while Iron and Wine plays in the background.

She wants him to murmur soft words into her ear until he's all she knows.

But Sasuke is offering her the chance to take things slowly, and she knows that's what needs to happen. She's hurting still and so is he; rushing into this will end in disaster. Even if her body is screaming for him, they both have the sense to know that they need to take baby steps.

She is absurdly in love with him. Even now, he's taking care of her. Putting her needs first, and giving Them a real shot.

It's the first time she ever thinks of Them with any real hope.

Absently, she feels his fingers brush the kanji on the tattoo on her side, and she shuts her eyes, trying to freeze this moment forever.

"I'll be ready at eight," she breathes against his lips.

And when he kisses her again, she feels his smile before she sees it. And there in the rain outside the Mexican restaurant, with her friends watching and cheering and exchanging high-fives, Sakura realizes she has never believed in hope more than at this very moment.

She feels closer to happy than ever before.

xoxoxo

Sasuke returns to his dorm that night and is unsurprised to find Naruto waiting up for him.

"TEME!" he shouts as Sasuke crosses the threshold. The loud volume doesn't bother him as much as it usually would, and he settles for an eye roll rather than the scathing retort that would have usually erupted from his mouth by now.

"Why the hell did you leave like that?" Naruto demands from his messy bed, his sleeping cap lopsided on his head. "Like a stalker or some shit. What's going on, teme! I'm your best friend, you owe me the truth, 'ttebayo! All this skulking around pretending like everything's fine when really you're head over ass for Sakura-chan and you're gonna-"

"I'm going out with her tomorrow," Sasuke says lightly.

"-act like there's nothing going on, and you're not even...wait, _what?_ What do you MEAN you're going out with her tomorrow?"

Sasuke smirks as he grabs his towel and shower caddy.

"You were right, dobe," he says, and he can't believe the words are coming out of his mouth.

There's a first time for everything, he realizes.

xoxoxo

**note..** I am pacing this story slowly for a reason. If you're impatient with it, I understand, but this is my story and I ask that you give me a chance to tell it. I appreciate all the constructive criticism and the suggestions on how to improve so, so much, because it's making me focus on being a better writer. But I'm not going to incorporate quick sex right away just because you blow up my inbox demanding it, or review it wondering why they haven't confessed yet. Give me a chance to set things up, okay?

Phils won. 5 in a row. Just so you all know.

Tonight's movie recommendation: Psycho. The original. Terrifying and terrifyingly good. Anthony Perkins and the beautiful Janet Leigh...classic horror.

And I know I've been gone for a minute on Catch You Later. I'm not happy with the ending I wrote so until I am, I humbly ask for your continued patience. Love y'alls.


	15. Date

Sakura stares into her closet and whimpers.

She is going on a date.

She is going on a date at eight o'clock.

She is going on a date at eight o'clock with Uchiha Sasuke.

Repeating the reality of what will happen in two hours sends a fresh wave of panic coursing through her, because she doesn't know whattosayhowtoactwhattowear and what was she thinking, agreeing to something like this?

She discards a body-con miniskirt without even trying it on, tossing it on her bed with contempt. It is joined soon by three pairs of skinny jeans, two dresses, six sweaters, and a romper, and Sakura wishes she would have gone shopping after class for something suitable to wear, but that's money she doesn't have to spend. Not after that splurge of a tattoo anyway, but she does NOT regret the winding vine of violets running up her side.

Still, she has a closet packed to bursting with cheap clothes she makes work and can't decide on anything.

Sakura sighs and realizes she is wasting valuable primping time worryingworryingworrying about what will happen tonight. She will be alone with Sasuke, yes, but she spends hours at a time alone with Sasuke. The only difference will be their mutual agreement to stop ignoring the obvious connection between them.

That isn't cause for alarm, she knows, but that doesn't stop the nervousnervousnervous shriek that threatens to escape her mouth as she drops her towel and begins to dress.

She tugs on a pair of cream-colored lace panties and a matching bra, and glances at her reflection in the mirror. Her figure is toned and lithe from dance, the only fat concentrated into small breasts, and even though her enmity with food is a thing of the past, lingering insecurities about her body remain. It's harder some days than others to banish the sound of Mommy's voice scolding her for munching on cookies and reminding her how unattractive she is.

She shakes it off and tries to look at herself objectively. Since That Night, she has avoided long examinations of her body; she jumps into the shower without looking in a mirror and dresses as quickly as possible. Her body became a stranger, one she was not entirely willing to reintroduce herself to.

If she wants to make this work with Sasuke, she knows she will need to become more comfortable with herself. So she fights the urge to look away and tries to look at herself objectively, the way someone else might.

The way Sasuke might.

She supposes she looks...nice, in a way. Her figure looks like a dancer's figure is supposed to. There is no excess fat. She stands as tall as she can, neck elongated, to add the illusion of height to her five-foot frame. There is subtle definition in her abs, and her waist dips in above hips that flare out, and while her breasts aren't overly large, they are perky and symmetrical.

Her eyes take in the subtle pink scar she knows Sasuke sees, and she sighs before turning away from her reflection and back into the closet.

Vaguely, she wonders if boys have this much trouble before a date.

xoxoxo

Sasuke knocks on her door and is uncharacteristically nervous.

He doesn't know much about dating, having never gone on a date himself, but he's seen TV shows and movies and his own friends do it. You're supposed to pick the girl up from her house. Ask permission from her father to date her. Open doors for her and pay for her dinner and bring her back at a reasonable hour with a kiss to her cheek and nothing more.

Sasuke can't do all of that. But he goes to her dorm to pick her up and doesn't make her meet him anywhere. He doesn't ask her father for permission because he doesn't know anything about her father, which tells him plenty. He doesn't bring her flowers but he'll foot the bill, and he doubts he can limit himself to just a kiss on the cheek but vows to if that's all she wants.

She opens the door and he sees her and he can't breathe straight.

She seems to have pulled out all the stops, and the thought flatters him more than he feels it should. Sakura looks perfect every day of the year, he knows, but when she puts in the extra effort, she looks too beautiful to be real.

Tonight her hair is styled with loose curls, bouncing at her elbows and framing her face. Her makeup is minimal, focused around her eyes, which are a startling green against her long dark eyelashes, her lips painted a pale pink the same shade as her hair. She's wearing a dress he hasn't seen before, a cream-colored strapless dress that cinches in at her tiny waist and flares out mid-thigh, against a pair of black nylons and black heels that lift her a few inches. She's holding a jacket in her hand and smiling nervously, her cheeks flushed.

"Hi," she says shyly, looking up at him as if seeking his approval.

Sasuke does not want her to know how she's reduced him to a bundle of nerves, so he smirks at her in wordless response, and her blush darkens, and he has never ever found her more attractive than at this moment.

"Ready?" he asks.

She smiles and nods and tugs on her jacket and grabs her purse, even though she won't be needing it, because he's paying. He doubts she knows that, though, and is looking forward to seeing her face. Is she one of those feminist types, who insist on paying their own way? Or is she a traditional girl, who will let him take care of things? He doesn't know.

He's excited to find out.

xoxoxo

Sasuke's holding her hand.

This becomes the only truth that has ever meant anything to Sakura, the foundation around which her entire existence is based. It's all she can focus on, all she can think about.

She doesn't know where he's taking her, nor does she particularly care, as long as she's with him. She still thinks this whole thing is a Bad Idea. She still thinks it can only end in heartache for both of them.

But it is impossible to deny the fact that she wants it, wants him. She knows it's not the best thing for either one of them, but she's too involved now to go back. They've crossed the point of no return, and even if this is the only date they ever go on, they can never go back to a time when it was just-friends-nothing-more.

They leave the building, meander down the winding trails to the bus stop that will take them into the city. The bus is packed and there's no empty seats; Sasuke is irritated and mumbles under his breath that one of the guys sitting down should stand and give his seat to Sakura, a girl, but she doesn't mind. She gets to stand closer to Sasuke than normal without any weirdness, as they both grip the overhead railing for support.

Sakura takes him in, figuring that if he's her date for the evening, there is no shame in checking him out. He looks even more gorgeous than usual, his black hair as tousled and spiky and artfully messy as ever, framing his angular face, thin lips and strong jaw. His coal eyes stare lazily outside the window as they enter the city, and in the navy blue button-up he's wearing with jeans and a leather jacket, he looks like a movie star.

Sakura has never felt an attraction like this before in her life.

She's drawn to him like magic and mystery. He's like some tragic Hollywood hero, good looks and aloof attitude and mysterious past rolled into one, and the fact that she's here with him right now, her shoulder rubbing against his side with each jerk of the bus, and that they are on a date, is mind-boggling.

"You okay?" he asks suddenly, jerking her out of her reverie. She looks up, blushing, to find his eyes locked on hers, one eyebrow raised. "You're red."

"I'm fine!" she squeaks, a bundle of nerves. "It's just, um, a little hot on the bus."

"Hn. We're almost there."

She's making this awkward, she realizes. Yes, they are on a date, but since meeting him three months ago, she and Sasuke have formed a close, comfortable friendship; since when does she have trouble talking to him? Realizing that her nervousness is affecting the situation, she makes a try for conversation, and is pleased when her voice comes out normal-sounding.

"So where are you taking me?" she asks with a smile she hopes is coquettish.

Sasuke smirks (she melts) and replies, "Not saying."

"Sasuke, why not?" she whines. "Why can't I know?"

"It's a surprise."

"But-"

"No buts, keep your voice down. You're noisy."

"You little-"

And they degenerate into an argument that contains no real animosity, and Sakura is giddy with excitement that not only are they on their way to their very first date, but all the lingering awkwardness has vanished, because even though they're tentatively taking their relationship a step further, they are still friends.

There are unanswered questions between them, she realizes. Enough to fill the bus they're riding on and it's not going to be easy and she still doesn't know what to do or expect. But for now, standing with Sasuke on the crowded bus, arguing and flirting and tearing down their barriers, Sakura allows herself to fall even further.

There's no fighting it.

xoxoxo

The old movie theater is playing Casablanca, and Sasuke is rewarded with the sight of Sakura's round, happy eyes as the bus pulls to a stop in front of it.

As far as first dates go, seeing a movie is not all that inspired. But Sakura is not a conventional girl, he knows. She is an old soul, a romantic at heart with a passion for classics, and to make her happy, he needs a new approach.

The theater is a hundred years old, and it shows in the cracks and faded paint and the old marquee overhead with the letters you have to change manually. It's nestled on the corner of a busy street, sparsely attended and neglected with the surge of businesses on the block, forgotten, its majesty fading into the background of a world too jaded to respect its grandeur.

He's only been here once before, with Sakura on a date that wasn't a date, but he knows she loves it and it's playing her favorite movie and he congratulates himself on his homerun of a date idea on the inside.

"You're the best!" Sakura exclaims happily, and he is unable to suppress his self-satisfied smirk as they disembark from the bus and it drives off, leaving them in front of the marquee as Sakura looks up at the dully-glowing sign reading Konoha Theatre with fondness in her eyes. It's a look he likes on her, he decides, and he makes a mental note to surround her with things that make her happy like she is now.

He allows himself the luxury of thinking he can be one of those things.

Sakura reaches into her purse for her wallet as they stand in line, but Sasuke stops her with a minute shake of his head and his hand on her wrist. The barest contact is like electricity, and he battles his attraction to her.

"No," he says flatly.

She looks confused. "But...I-"

"I'm paying. Put your money away."

"Sasuke you don't have to do that, it's-"

"We're on a date, Sakura." He's impatient with her and amused by her all at once, something that's becoming more and more common, it seems. That's all the explanation he feels he needs to give her.

She looks quiet, thoughtful, and her eyes fall to the sidewalk. He frowns.

"What."

"Nothing, it's just...no one's ever paid for me before."

Sakura looks up at him again with something like amazement shining in her eyes, and Sasuke is revisited by a familiar amalgamation of anger and resolve. Sakura, in her life, has never been treated the way she should have been, from the beginning. It angers and confounds him that she had friends and a family who never treasured her, who never took care of her the way she needed and deserved.

He decides that he will do that, and rolls his eyes at her.

"Get used to it," he says flatly, arrogantly, and when Sakura stands on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, he smirks with satisfaction.

They sit in the very middle of the theater. Sakura is careful to pick the seat directly in front of the movie projector, because it's her favorite place to sit, and Sasuke, amused at this quirk, sits beside her unfussily. They are the only ones in the theater which suits him fine, and he rests his arm on the back of her chair, not touching her, but close enough to feel her warmth and offer her some of his.

She glances over at him with a sweet smile as the theater darkens and the movie begins. The light from the projector plays across her face, her skin translucent white among the shadows but her eyes as green as ever. And Sasuke reads the emotion in them as loud as if she'd screamed it, and he realizes she doesn't need the tattooed kanji on her side.

Not when hope is painted in balmy green eyes in something far more indelible than ink.

xoxoxo

Sakura has never been less enthralled with Casablanca in her life.

She has seen it often enough to be able to quote the movie in its entirety; her favorite scene is when Ilsa pulls the gun on Rick in the room above the bar, but is unable to finish him off, her love for him prevailing over all else. But not even that is enough to hold her attention, with Sasuke sitting so close to her.

He's watching the movie with as much interest as he shows anything, apathetic but not bored. His arm is still draped around the back of her seat, his fingers brushing lazily, absently along her arm and driving her completely to distraction.

She can't focus.

She's on a perfect perfect date with Sasuke, after all, and he's all she can think about.

The darkness of the theater has her thinking dirty thoughts. They are alone, in front of the most romantic movie of all time, and the isolation and darkness and her proximity to Sasuke are taking their toll on her.

She is becoming less and less inhibited as she becomes more and more attracted. Her hands are folded tightly in her lap, but she decides to take a chance, and lifts one and rests it lightly on Sasuke's thigh.

She feels the tight muscle flex beneath her fingers and blushes all the way to her hair to find Sasuke looking at her with something searing in his coal black eyes. He doesn't ask her to remove her hand so she doesn't, and she feels his grip around her shoulder tighten minutely.

It's a little hard to breathe, and Sakura tries with all her might to turn her attention back to the movie.

But she's sitting beside her very own Rick Blaine at the moment and it's hard to ignore that.

xoxoxo

The movie ends and Sakura smiles wistfully and looks up at him as they leave before winding her fingers through his.

"Thank you so much, Sasuke," she says sweetly and Sasuke finds it difficult to look directly at her when she smiles like that, so he pretends to focus on finding the exit in the darkness as the credits roll. "That was so nice of you to take me to my favorite movie, it's even better on the big screen!"

"Hn," he replies, because her gratitude makes him uncomfortable. He can shoulder any burden, bear any weight in the world, but he does not know how to handle gratitude, does not know what to do with the knowledge that he has made someone else smile. That's never been his forte, anyway, that was always Naruto, Naruto with the magnetic personality who made people smile without even trying.

But here's Haruno Sakura, strange and perfect in a fucked up kind of way, who looks at him with stars in her eyes like he's the best thing she's ever known. He doesn't know what to do with that, and apathy and denial have always been his shields against uncertainty.

"You tired?" he asks without looking at her.

"Um, not really. Do you want to head back?"

"The last bus to KU is 10:30."

"Okay, we have a few minutes then," she says, working out the schematics in her head. "When we get back we can hang out in my room, if you want. It's still early."

Sasuke tries and fails to block the stream of fantasies that flow into his mind like water at her suggestion. Has he been alone with her in her room before? Yes. But not after a date. Not after kissing her in the rain like some fucking movie hero, not after knowing that what he feels is notnotnot onesided.

No one around but them, in an empty room, alone.

The odds of his keeping his hands to himself are nonexistent.

But to deny Sakura's request is to deny Sakura herself, and he knows she will take the rejection personally, rather than accept his actual excuse: that she is irresistible and he does not trust himself around her. So he has no choice (as if he could ever say no) and murmurs an assenting, "Aa."

This time, there's room on the bus for them to sit. Sasuke finds a seat at the back of the bus and they are nestled behind the groups of loud college kids, the light from the streetlamps dancing across Sakura's porcelain face as she looks out the window, an easy smile on her face he has rarely seen before.

He's content to just watch her for a moment, pretty Sakura in her pretty clothes with her pretty hair and that honest pretty smile. He's content to know that he's the reason she's made herself as pretty as possible, that he's the reason she smiles so honestly and this time, tonight, she's not putting on a show.

She turns to look up at him and her eyes are dark as they flicker from his eyes to his lips and back again. Sasuke feels himself drawing closer and closer, the connection between them strengthening like a magnet. He shifts his body slightly so that it's angled towards her instead of facing forward; without his permission, his hand rises to cup her cheek, which is smooth under the rough pads of his fingers.

She doesn't stop him as he leans closer. His nose gently brushes hers; he stops just shy of her lips, her minty cinnamon breath fanning against his face and sending a pang of lust coursing through him with enough strength to make his knees buckle, and he's vaguely glad they're sitting so she doesn't see.

Her eyes are hooded as she touches her lips gently to his, unsure and tentative, and she tastes like adventure and hope and something _more._ She draws back slightly and looks up at him in silent question, and he answers her by releasing a strangled groan and kissing her back, thoroughly, tilting her face to deepen the kiss.

He forgets most things, except for her. He forgets that they're on a bus with other people around to see what they're doing. He forgets his inhibitions most of all, and all he knows is Sakura. Her little hands slide up the front of his jacket, searing the skin underneath and making him come alive for her in ways he has never before imagined, and then her fingers slip through his hair.

Sasuke's thumb presses lightly on her chin and he is thrilled when she opens her mouth for him and allows him inside. It's a kiss that's an analogy for their relationship, Sasuke's patience and Sakura's determination, and their mutual resolution to trust one another, even though it's scary.

Sasuke has never conceived of anything like this in all his life. He never saw himself as the type of guy to fall head over ass for a girl, the type to plan out a romantic date and cap it off with a kiss, but here he is, and the strangled romantic in him tells him there isn't anywhere he'd rather be.

Sakura draws back a few minutes or seconds or centuries later with fire in her eyes. She's breathing heavily and it takes him a moment to realize he is, too. She blinks rapidly as her eyes search his face before she whispers, "Come to my room tonight, Sasuke. Please."

Sasuke swallows what feels like his heart.

There is no mistaking her intention.

And Sasuke takes her all in, flushed cheeks and ragged breaths and kiss-swollen lips and green eyes burning with need, her perfect pink curls mussed from his impatient hands, and realizes he has never feared or wanted anything more in his entire life than this girl.

Tonight, then.

The bus pulls to a stop in front of their building and it's all he can do not to shake.

xoxoxo

**note..** Well, the Phillies are on a winning streak. My fiancee and I are getting married next month, (wedding planning is fucking hard, y'all) and my birthday's next week! So I have no reason not to happily continue this story-that-I-love-writing as much as I love all of you. Have a fun safe (drunkk) weekend!


	16. Suspect

Sakura wakes the next morning and it's rainy outside and windy and it's really, really early, so it's still dark.

She remembers instantly what's happened. Her blush is hot across her face as she opens her eyes and sees a strong arm wrapped around her waist. Sasuke's still sleeping, his breath fanning across her ear from behind her, his chest rising and falling in time to even, relaxed breathing.

Sakura listens to the whistle of the wind against the window and lets her mind wander.

Not for one moment last night had her crippling fear of intimacy made an appearance.

She'd thought, all this time, that after That Night, she would never be able to engage in a normal, physical relationship with a man without insurmountable anxiety dividing them. She focused on schoolwork and dance and socializing and clothes and other things, and quietly removed the possibility of a boyfriend from her list of priorities, because Sakura is a logical girl and logic says she's too broken to come back from what she's been through.

Then she met Uchiha Sasuke.

Intense Sasuke, who had the power to bring her to her knees with little more than a glance. Gorgeous Sasuke, who with a flex of his arms and a tilt of his smirk had her eating out of the palm of his hand. Patient Sasuke, who took his time with her, who was gentle and solicitous and impossibly _good._ Sasuke who understood her and knew her and didn't find her as repulsive as she found herself.

Sakura turns in Sasuke's arms so she's facing him now, and he doesn't stir, and she studies his features almost hungrily, like she's starving for him. He's relaxed, his hair messier than usual first thing in the morning and falling in his eyes and framing his face. He's shirtless, his skin almost scorching against hers, his muscles rippling with each intake of breath and each exhale.

She loveshimloveshimloveshim. She loves him not because he's so handsome, so mysterious. She doesn't love him for the reasons his horde of female admirers claim to love him.

She loves him because he's Sasuke.

His name has come to mean so many, many things to her, she realizes. It's more than a name, more than a person. It's an ideal, a philosophy. It means safety and security. It means faith and love and friendship. Protection and camaraderie. Humor and sincerity. Adventure.

Hope.

She lifts her hand and brushes his hair out of his eyes. He sighs and leans into her touch and her heart melts and surges with more love than she's ever thought herself capable of, and when she kisses his forehead, she hopes he can feel that from her.

He deserves to.

xoxoxo

Sasuke wakes later, and finds Sakura rummaging around in her closet. He sits up, rubs the sleep from his eyes, recalls what's happened the night before, and even has the decency to blush when he sees that she's only half-dressed, in a magenta bra and a pair of skinny jeans that make her legs look miles long.

She's messy and unfinished, her hair damp from a shower and unkempt, her face clean of makeup, and she's cursing a little as she hunts for something suitable to wear.

"Shitfuck," he hears, and he smirks. Such language tumbling from so pretty a mouth this early in the morning is cause for amusement.

"Sakura," he says, to get her attention, and she looks back at him with a pretty blush to her cheeks.

"Oh, morning, Sasuke," she replies shyly, and this is when she is most beautiful to him. When she's at her most natural, flustered and not attempting to hide it. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Aa."

"Good, good."

She's not going to address the previous night, he realizes, and he thinks that maybe they don't need to. So much of their interaction with one another lies in the things they _don't_ say. They have crossed a line, maybe a hundred lines, and he does not regret it. He has shown her physically how he feels; the discussion seems superfluous at this point.

Sakura smiles and tugs a form-fitting sweater over her head before shaking her hair out, then she moves towards the bed and kisses him slowly, sweetly on the mouth.

His hand threads through her hair and he pulls her closer, savoring this moment of fearless connection, before she pulls back to smile at him and he sees it and can't bring himself not to ask.

"This scar, Sakura," he murmurs, his fingers brushing featherlight across the pink imperfection on her neck. "Where'd you get it."

The reaction is instantaneous.

Sasuke watches as the shield restores itself in Sakura's eyes. Her walls erect themselves again in the work of a moment, and she's a fortress, untouchable, even with her skin beneath his hands.

"It's nothing," she says with a sweet smile that does not even attempt to convince him. "Don't worry about it. You have a game today, you should eat something and head down to the field."

"Sakura-"

"Come on," she coaxes, and her tone is firm, because she isnothavingthisconversation.

Abruptly, as he slides out of her bed and stretches, keeping his eyes on her as she flutters busily around the room, Sasuke remembers all the ways they are still entirely incompatible. Sakura has admitted to him, in so many words, that she has been raped. But there is more to her, so much more, that she has been through that she will not so much as whisper to him about. The scar on her neck, her mysterious, career-ending knee injury, the lack of information on her parents or pretty much anything substantial about her life before Konoha University.

And Sakura knows nothing about him. _Nothing,_ besides what he's deigned to offer of himself.

The thought is sour. She's lovely and broken but trying, and he's giving her the best of himself while denying the worst. He's exposing Sakura to the hideousness of who he really is, endangering her by allowing her to get closer, because she does not know the risks of being close to someone like him.

She is a mess. He is a disaster. Both of them have secrets that stockpile between them like a chasm.

They've slept together, and still, knowing her as well as he does, he watches her fiddle with her hair and realizes she's a stranger to him, and he's a stranger to her.

Best friends, lovers, liars, strangers.

That's what they are, and unless things change (his eyes trace the pink scar that holds so many secrets), that's all they ever will be.

xoxoxo

It's November now, and things have changed, somewhat.

Outwardly, things are the same; they share breakfast and study hours, workouts at the gym and Movie Nights with the rest. It is behind closed doors, however, that their relationship evolves.

What changes is that Sakura has entered into a relationship with Sasuke. Everyone knows, and everyone talks. Most discuss it with gladness and conspiratorial, I-knew-it-all-along glances exchanged back and forth when Sakura's paying attention. Others discuss it in less-than-cordial terms, with jealous whispers that carry across lecture halls and dining halls and gyms and parties.

But Sakura loves Sasuke, even if she's never told him, and she bears the idle gossip and jealous rumors and hope people lose interest in her private life, because it's meant to stay private.

Naruto approves of his closest friends' relationship; so do all of their friends, and that's enough for Sakura.

She is closer to Sasuke than ever before; she sleeps comfortably beside him every night, he kisses her like he means it and in the bedroom, they are as starving for one another as they were prior to their first time. She trusts him, mostly. And loves him, completely.

But there remains between them a barrier, a plunging chasm full of the things they do not say. Even if she has known Sasuke as intimately as one can know another, even if she has seen his eyes full of desire, heard the words he murmurs in her ear as he moves inside her, she still feels like she knows so little of the man she allows to share her single.

There are things she hides from him, too. Things she is not ready to speak of to anyone, even to Sasuke.

But regardless of their reasons, each secret serves as a stone in the growing wall between them. Sakura wonders one day, sitting alone at her desk with her homework spread in front of her, if that wall can ever be torn down.

Or if they need their secrets more than they need each other.

The knocking on the door interrupts her thoughts, and she stands and opens it to find Ino waiting in the threshold with tears in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asks quickly, ushering her friend inside.

Ino, who is light and laughter, obnoxious joy and scandalous fun, looks demented. Her blue eyes are rimmed red, her hair messy and wild, her nose running and sweat on her forehead. She says nothing, can't say a word, and in her shaking hands she holds a small white plastic stick out to Sakura.

Sakura sees the tiny blue positive sign and thoughts of her tenuous relationship with Sasuke are erased from her mind.

xoxoxo

Sasuke finishes his essay in the library and heads back to Hokage Hall.

It's cold for November. Bitterly cold and brisk, and Sasuke's eyes water involuntarily as he tucks his head into his jacket against the wind. His classes are getting harder, and he's growing more and more frustrated with the idea of becoming a lawyer. He's half a semester into college, and he already regards his dream job with utter disdain.

He wishes he could be like his girlfriend, who delights in the classes she takes and knows exactly what she wants to be when she grows up. He admires Sakura for her drive and ambition, but most of all for the joy she finds in what she does.

But it's stupid to envy her for that, because becoming a lawyer was never about what Sasuke wanted, or what would make him happy. He's long since lost the inclination to strive for what would make him happy; hell, he doesn't even know what that could possibly _be._

Everyone in his family has been a lawyer. It's the profession of choice for Uchiha men, and as Sasuke is the last of them, it would be indecent to aspire to become anything else or anything less.

It does not matter that his passion is not law. Life has never been about passion for Sasuke.

He stops himself there, because that's no longer true, and Sasuke does not tolerate liars, least of all himself.

Because he met Sakura. Beautiful Sakura with her beautiful eyes, smart, funny, amazing, _brave_ Sakura, who has become something in his life he is passionate about. Even if that passion is heavily guarded, and that no one except her knows it even exists, she has brought him to life in more ways than one. She has introduced passion and romance and connection to a life lived entirely for others, and in doing so, has made him question the things he might desire for himself.

Is there no more to Uchiha Sasuke than his deadgoneforever family? Or is he someone else, a separate entity, independent of his preordained destiny?

This is the danger Sakura presents.

She makes him forget his ambition. She distracts him from his goals. She has him pondering unattainable things like happiness, when his responsibility is to live up to his name.

Sasuke's feet crunch loudly on fallen leaves, and another errant tear slides down his face from the bitingly cold wind. He shoulders his backpack more securely and steps inside the building, greeted by a rush of warmth from the happily-humming heaters in the common room. It's a welcome reprieve from the brisk evening air outside, and he heads into the elevator and presses the big green four and waits for it to take him up to his floor.

Sakura is in her room, as usual, the door open as it often is. She's sitting at her desk typing furiously away on her laptop, and looking so pretty Sasuke almost has to look away from her.

He begins to forget about his internal frustrations, and Sakura's role in them, and bends down to kiss her cheek in greeting.

He expects her to giggle like she normally does and smile up at him and pull him in for a proper kiss and maybe more than that, but the second his lips connect with her cheek, she lets out a squeal of surprise and she hastily shuts her laptop.

"Sasuke!" she squeaks out. "I didn't even hear you!"

Normally he might apologize for startling her, but he does not like for one second the way she shut her laptop on reflex, as if to hide it from him.

Sakura keeps enough secrets to herself, conceals so much of herself even as intimate as they are with one another. What now? What now is she hiding?

He knows he is being ridiculous, irrational, unreasonably suspicious and that Sakura keeps her secrets for the same reason he keeps his: they are protecting one another, and themselves. She is not the sort of girl to hide things unless they _needed_ to be hidden, and maybe she wasn't hiding anything at all, and he is overreacting.

"What are you up to," he asks, studying her face.

"Homework," she answers quickly. Too quickly. Her eyes flicker from her closed laptop to his face, and back again.

She's lying.

The thought makes his blood simmer, makes his bad mood worsen. Who is she to lie to him? Who is she to add one more _fucking_ secret to the canyon-full between them? Who is she to look him right in the eye and force him to love her, and all he gets in return is shifty, sneaky bullshit?

"You want to get dinner?" Sakura asks him with a smile, and he knows she's trying to distract him.

Suddenly he doesn't want to be near her. Doesn't want to look at her, at those deceptively innocent eyes and the sweet, disarming smile that makes him relax without realizing he's relaxing. Suddenly, Sasuke does not want to be around Sakura, and the thought is as miserable as it is true.

"No," he says flatly. He turns to leave, but Sakura stops him.

"Um...are you okay?" She sounds nervous and a little hurt, and he knows his blatant dismissal is rude, but she deserves it, hiding from him like that.

"Aa."

"You don't seem okay."

"You're hiding something." The accusation is out before he can stop himself, and it hangs heavy in the air between them. He doesn't turn around to face her, and there is a beat of silence, before Sakura replies.

"Yes, I am," she confesses.

He whirls around and his eyes are angry and Sakura looks remorseful, but she stands her ground.

"I am hiding something, but only because it's not my secret to share," she continues. "I know it's...well. I know it doesn't help anything between you and me, but even though I can't tell you right now exactly what it is, I can promise you it has nothing to do with us, and it won't affect our relationship at all. Okay?"

It's not the rapidfire denial he's expecting, or the half-ass excuse. Sakura looks honest and repentant, and claims to be keeping another's secret, instead of her own.

Sasuke recognizes what she's doing. She's telling him the truth, or at least as much of it as she can.

The gesture is appreciated, but even as he nods in acceptance, and leaves his bag in her room so they can get dinner together, and even as she sits across from him and smiles and laughs and chats away like nothing's wrong, Sasuke is faced with a sour, unfortunate truth:

He does not trust Sakura.

xoxoxo

Ino is Sakura's best friend. Since meeting one another that first week, they have become sisters to one another; time not spent with Sasuke is spent with Naruto, and Sakura loves Ino to death. Even though they've only known each other a few months, Sakura trusts Ino and Ino trusts Sakura right back.

So Ino trusts Sakura with this.

Ino is a mess. Her father, she says, will kill her, her friends will scorn her, and Shikamaru will leave her. All these things, she says with conviction, and for once in her life, Sakura is in a position to care for and protect. She draws Ino into her arms and comforts her, shocked at the news but certainly not about to judge her best friend for what's happened, because that's not what best friends do.

The two girls sit together on the carpet, Ino leaning against Sakura's shoulder as they discuss options.

They make an appointment with the campus doctor to confirm what they already know, and Ino tells Sakura her decision: she is keeping the baby. Sakura respects every woman's right to choose, and will support Ino no matter what, and she tells her so, which prompts Ino to cry even harder.

"Why are you being so supportive?" Ino sobs. She grips her blonde hair with both hands and pulls hard enough to hurt. "You're supposed to scold me and tell me how stupid I am and what a slut I am and-"

"Stop it," Sakura says firmly. She bats away Ino's violent hands from her hair and strokes the cornflower locks instead, soothingly. "You did a stupid thing, Yamanaka Ino, but that does not make you stupid and it isn't going to help you now! Whatever you decide, if you want to keep it or get rid of it or give it up for adoption or whatever, I'm going to be there for you whether you like it or not."

"I can't believe I was such an _idiot!_" Ino whimpered. "Shikamaru doesn't like condoms and I was too lazy to get my birth control prescription filled, so he's just been pulling out till I can get to the doctor's, and I was so _stupid_ to think that was protection enough!"

"Look, Ino. You can criticize yourself all you want but it's not gonna change anything. Okay? Moving forward, you need to decide what to do next."

"I...I want to keep it," Ino whispers timidly, like she's afraid it isn't the right answer, but Sakura knows in a situation like this, there _are_ no right answers. There is only a woman and her right to choose what to do, and Sakura knows, probably better than most, that a woman must do what she feels is right where her body is concerned.

"Then I'll support you," Sakura vows. "I'll help you out, Ino, I promise."

"What about Shikamaru? He's gonna hate me. He's gonna break up with me, I just know it. This kind of thing would ruin him!"

"Don't be stupid." Sakura sees the way Shikamaru looks at Ino. It's like he's found the Fountain of Youth or the treasure of the Sierra Madre or the Hope Diamond. It's a mixture of amazement and wonder, and contentment and security. She knows, beyond all doubt, that Shikamaru will not turn his back on Ino. "He's not some deadbeat boyfriend who'll leave at the first speed bump."

"Speed bump? Sakura I'm fucking pregnant! That's way, way more than a speed bump!"

"Well, whatever his decision is, you have me through this whole thing. Okay? I'll be here every step of the way, and we'll get through this together."

Ino is quiet, the room is quiet, except for her sniffling as both girls think of what to do next. Ino whispers, "What am I supposed to do now, though? I got into KU on a Psychology scholarship. I'm gonna lose it!"

"You don't have to miss school," Sakura replies, doing the math in her head. "Let's say you're a month along, right? That leaves about eight months till you deliver...which would be...July or August. That's over summer break, school won't start again till September."

"But I'll have a _baby,_ Sakura."

"Worst case, you take a semester off. Or a year. You wouldn't be able to live on campus with a baby, but you could get one of the apartments nearby."

"I couldn't afford that."

"If Shikamaru lived with you, you could. And if he says no, then I will."

Ino laughs through her tears. "You'd help me raise this kid?"

"Ino you're my best friend. I'd do anything for you. Understand?"

There is silence once again. Sakura thinks about what she can do to help; she will put Ino on a regimen of vitamins, of course, and-

"Please don't tell anyone, Sakura. I'm...I'm not ready for anyone else to know. Not even Sasuke."

"I won't. But what about Shikamaru? You have to tell him, Ino, he has a right to know."

"I know. I will. Just...not now. I can't handle it right now, I can't look him in the eyes and tell him something like this, he'd never forgive me. I need to get a handle on it myself before I tell him."

Sakura nods in understanding.

"It's our secret, Ino. I'll go with you to the doctor on Tuesday. Okay?"

"Th-Thank you so much, Sakura. I can't...I don't know what I'd do without you."

And that's that. Ino leaves and Sakura is alone in her room, sworn to secrecy and researching what to expect when you're expecting. Her fingers breeze across the keyboard of her laptop as her mind absorbs all this information she didn't expect to have to learn for many years, if at all: the duration of a trimester, which vitamins are recommended for expectant mothers, breathing techniques.

It's almost surreal. Her best friend is going to be a mother.

Sakura does not envy Ino this struggle. She is glad that Sasuke uses a condom every time, and that she never misses a birth control pill.

She can't tell Sasuke. She doesn't like the idea of adding one more thing to the list of things-she-can't-tell-Sasuke, because it's long enough as it is. Her hand slides absently over the scar on her neck, as if to emphasize her point. But this time, she's keeping a secret for her best friend's sake.

Sasuke does not miss the way she hurriedly shuts her laptop, and she can tell he's angry with her, because the gesture looks suspicious. She hopes he is content with what little explanation she can give him, and he seems to be, but Sakura has to wonder if Sasuke trusts her.

She sits across from him in the cafeteria over dinner and looks in his eyes and feels farther away from him than she ever has, because she doesn't think he trusts her, and what's more, she knows she doesn't deserve it.

xoxoxo

Sakura falls asleep first that night.

They are watching a ballgame together, and Sasuke glances down to find that she is fast asleep, breathing deeply and not moving.

His eyes dart, almost unwillingly, to the laptop on her desk.

It's a Bad Idea. Sakura told him this secret had nothing to do with them, which meant it wasn't any of his business.

He should take that for what it's worth, and put the whole situation out of his head.

But he can't. Sakura hides so much of herself, her past and her feelings, and she gives him what she thinks he can handle and nothing more than that. But he's had enough of her secrecy. If he can solve this one mystery...maybe his doubt in her will fade away?

If this has nothing to do with him, then there's no harm in him knowing, is there?

Justified by this twisted rationale, Sasuke slides out of her bed, careful not to disturb her. She curls up into a little ball and does not stir; he moves silent, stealthily towards her laptop and lifts the lid, types in her password.

What he sees on the screen nearly takes his breath away.

_You're Pregnant. Now What?_

There is a roaring in his ears, and the air is sucked from his lungs, and Sasuke is amazed he's still standing.

xoxoxo

**note..** Hello there! New subplot now...next chapter, Sasuke struggles with trust and more from his past is revealed. Let me know what you think! Love you guys.


	17. Break

It feels like all the air is gone from the room and the world as Sasuke's eyes lock in on the word "pregnant."

He loses track of where he is and what he's doing. He forgets Sakura, sleeping peacefully on her bed, and that he's sneaking around searching her computer for evidence of her indiscretions. He doesn't remember his name or anything relevant, not when all he can think is "My life is over my life is over what the fucking hell how could this happen my life is over."

How is it possible?

_I used a condom,_ he thinks wildly, furiously, his hands in his hair. _Every fucking time I used a condom! She told me she was on the pill, how the hell can she be pregnant?_

How could she look him right in the _eyes_ and tell him this had nothing to do with him?

A dark, haunting thought overwhelms him. The possibility that this really _does_ have nothing to do with him...the possibility that, while she was using protection with Sasuke...

He can barely think it through the incandescent rage that descends over him, but there _is_ a way Sakura can be pregnant.

By another guy.

The baby isn't his.

The concept is so repulsive that all Sasuke wants to do is dismiss it from his mind for the rest of his life. He can't stand it, but he can picture it so vividly: Sakura, gasping in that sweet way, while another guy pounded into her, while another guy pressed her down against the bed and she cried out his name instead...

He isn't sure which conclusion is more horrifying. The idea that, through some mishap in science, he's about to become a father, or that Sakura cheated on him and is pregnant with someone else's baby.

Sasuke slams the laptop lid shut. The sound doesn't rouse Sakura, who is sleeping so soundly, so contentedly, like she isn't harboring this damning secret, a fact so absurdly important to their future. He stares at her like he's never seen anything like her. This coy little minx, this fucking _liar_ who can smile sweetly and blind him with false innocence, while dealing in shadows and deceptions just like _everyone else in his life._

He's so angry he can't see straight, can't trust himself around Sakura right now. He needs to get out of here and clear his head before he confronts her. Without waking her, he puts on his shoes and coat and stalks out of her room. The door slams shut but she sleeps on as he steps onto the elevator in a haze of anger and confusion and frustration.

The night air is freezing, and smells of snow, but Sasuke can't feel the plunging temperature nor the icy wind on his face when he steps outside. He isn't sure where he's going, nor does he care.

He ends up at the bench on K-Quad and sits down and tries to calm down.

_You don't know if it's true,_ he reminds himself, trying to inject some rationale into his reasoning. _You don't know anything about it, she might have just been researching for a project or some shit. Just because she searched it doesn't mean she's pregnant._

_Did she fuck someone else?_ he thinks. The idea is almost numbingly infuriating. Sasuke is quite aware that he is the jealous type, territorial of his girl and intolerant of any guy coming onto her. Just imagining someone else touching her the way he's touched her makes him so angry he can't breathe.

But if she had...when could it have happened? Sakura has spent every night for weeks with him, and nearly every minute of her day is spent in someone else's company, because of her distaste for being alone.

But there _was_ that suspicious way she quick hid what she was doing from him...she'd even _admitted_ she was hiding something from him!

Still, he reasons, she wasn't flustered or embarrassed or guilty about it. She calmly told him that she was keeping a secret but that it was for someone else. That it in no way affected the two of them, and that he shouldn't worry about it. Shouldn't she be panicking, if pregnancy was the case? (He's panicked enough for both of them at the mere possibility.)

Could she really lie to him about something like this?

He doesn't know. He can't answer that question with any semblance of conviction because, for as much as Sasuke loves Sakura and wants to believe the same in return, he _does not trust her._

How can he? How can he learn to lower his guard and accept her, when all she does is _hide?_ There is _so much_ of herself she keeps under lock and key. And while she has her reasons, it does nothing to build trust between them. He is suspicious of her, and he doesn't want to be, but he is.

Even if this situation is one big misunderstanding, and that he's being overly suspicious for no reason, the issue remains: Sakura has proven herself untrustworthy, and regardless of her reasoning and rationalizing, he can't get past that.

Minutes pass, and turn into hours, while Sasuke mulls the situation over in his head.

If she _is _pregnant. If it _is_ his.

Then what?

_I'm too fucked up,_ he thinks hollowly. _I'm too fucked up and so is she. How the hell could we raise a baby?_

Sasuke is self-aware, first and foremost. He knows he's smart and driven and when he competes, he wins. He knows he's damaged from childhood tragedies and hung up on the past. He knows that he's careening towards a future dictated to him by people who are long gone and that it will never be what he wants. He knows he's in love with a girl who he doesn't trust.

He knows he cannot possibly raise a child that would come out normal and well-adjusted and happy and the way every kid should come out.

He scrubs his hands over his eyes as if trying to scrape some sense out of this situation, but nothing makes sense and nothing adds up and all roads lead to Sasuke's complete and utter destruction.

_I should have known,_ he thinks bitterly. _I should have known better than this._

The cloudy night sky bleeds into a snowy morning, and Sasuke doesn't move.

xoxoxo

Sakura wakes up and realizes that something is wrong.

She is alone in her bed. She has not woken up alone in weeks; there is always a warm, strong, comforting presence pinned between her body and the wall beside her bed. Someone to mumble a grumpy good morning and someone to kiss awake and someone to tell her she's a distraction before deepening the kiss.

Instead, she wakes up cold and alone and confused. Where is Sasuke?

She sits up, rolls her shoulders, runs her fingers through her messy pink mane before standing and finding her cell phone. There is a text from Sasuke, and she half-smiles in relief before reading it.

"Meet me at K-Quad. We need to talk."

Sakura dresses quickly and heads towards K-Quad in a sort of trance. _We need to talk. We need to talk. We need to talk._

Four words that alwaysalwaysalways precede a heartbreaking break-up. Nothing good _ever_ followed "We need to talk." The idea sends liquid ice coursing through her veins as she pictures the idea of losing Sasuke, but she is so revolted by the mere possibility that she dismisses it entirely.

It's snowing, and she huddles inside her leather jacket as close as she can, her boots crunching on the slush and she sees him sitting on the bench, his hands shoved in his pockets and his head bowed. He's gorgeous with the snow behind him, and she fights back the anxiety and smiles brightly at him.

"Hey, handsome."

He looks up and doesn't smirk at her like he usually would. He's glaring, glaring like he's furious, and she doesn't know what's wrong. What could possibly have happened between last night and this morning, that's gotten him so heated?

"What's wrong?" she asks fearfully. "Sasuke how long have you been out here?"

"All night," he grinds out, and the tone makes her sick to her stomach. He's hostile. It's directed exclusively at her, and bearing the full weight of Sasuke's rage is overwhelming. Awful. And she doesn't know what she's done.

"Why?" she chokes.

"When were you gonna tell me?" he demands.

_Tell him what?_ she thinks, wracking her brains for an answer, but she doesn't know what he's talking about, and she tells him so. And it makes him scoff a humorless laugh that sets her heart to racing and he's on his feet in a minute and towering over her.

"Oh that's right," he snaps sarcastically. "It has nothing to do with me, right?"

Sakura blinks.

"I don't...Sasuke what are you _talking_ about?"

Then, it clicks. He's confronting her about Ino. But he doesn't know it's Ino, she thinks. All he knows is that there's a secret and she knows it and he doesn't and she won't tell him.

Her previous fear warps into anger volatile enough to match his own.

"It wasn't any of your business," she says coldly. "It had _nothing to do with you._"

"I guess being your _boyfriend_ doesn't count?" Sasuke spits the word 'boyfriend' like it's acid on his tongue, and Sakura flinches againts her will.

"You didn't need to know yet!" Sakura snaps. "You don't need to know! Why can't you just trust me about it?"

"Didn't need to know 'yet?' When were you gonna tell me, huh? _Nine months from now?_"

_He knows,_ Sakura thinks, her stomach turning. How could she have betrayed Ino like this, after just_ one day?_ She'd promised to keep the truth about Ino's condition a secret between the two of them, and Sasuke had figured it out. But how?

"It's none of your _business,_ Sasuke!" she yells. "Damn it, why are you so mad about this? I-"

Sasuke slams his fist into the tree over the bench and silences her diatribe. She's never seen him like this before, so nakedly livid, white hot fury blazing in his silver-black eyes, and all of it focused on her. She doesn't understand why he's this angry over Ino's unexpected pregnancy, before things start to click into place.

"You don't trust me," she says hollowly.

Those four words linger between them like a cancer, and Sakura feels like this time, here is an obstacle to their relationship that they can't overcome.

Nothing more is said, before Sasuke shakes his head and turns his back on her. She returns to her dorm in tears. She doesn't know where he goes.

It feels like an ending.

xoxoxo

Sasuke makes the decision quickly and quietly, before anyone can change his mind.

Naruto is visiting his girlfriend at the moment, which suits his purposes fine. He's the only person besides Sakura who could probably talk him out of his resolution. It's a sign from God or Satan or whoever's been pulling the strings all his life that Naruto isn't here to talk some sense into him.

Sometimes being an Uchiha heir has its benefits. For example, it only takes a handful of phone calls to the right people, before his credits are transferred to Oto University.

He has his things packed up in the Jetta he's neglected since coming to college; it doesn't take him long. His militaristic personality makes it so he can have his entire life secured away in under an hour. He scans the room one last time (his bed is stripped, the navy blue mattress as bare as the day he inherited it) and sighs to himself before turning to leave.

No one knows what he's doing, where he's going, so aside from the occasional greeting from an acquaintance on the way out of Hokage Hall, he receives no special attention. No tearful goodbyes, no heartfelt pleading, and for this, he is grateful. A clean break, silent and sudden, the way goodbyes should be: never spoken in the first place.

He misses the pair of green eyes that watch him carry the last of his things to the elevator.

Sasuke is not sad. He is not angry. He is not optimistic. He is numb. The cloudy skies overhead threaten snow, to match his frosty mood: he feels nothing, like he's been opened up and turned inside out and beaten so raw, there's nothing left to do but wait to feel the pain.

If Sakura is pregnant, then he's an asshole. A deadbeat father-to-be too afraid of commitment and parenthood to be worth anything. If she's pregnant and it's _not_ his, then she's a cheating whore and he's still an asshole, only a stupid one this time, because he loves her. If she's _not_ pregnant, then he's an asshole for doubting her in the first place. No matter how this reveals itself, he's the villain, and somehow, it's a role he's comfortable accepting.

But Sakura can't be trusted, not at this point in her life. And Sasuke can't get over that. And he can't be honest with her in return, honest about the horrors of his past and the murkiness of his future. And it's gone on too long, and can no longer be ignored.

It's the end of them, he knows.

He should fight, he thinks, as he unlocks his car and deposits his duffel bag in the front seat, the rest of his life in the back. He should fight for Sakura. For as untrustworthy as she is, for as many lies as she tells and as many plays as she acts, she is far and away the best person he's ever known. He loves her completely, in every way, and more than he's ever loved anyone, except maybe his mother. Though they've only been a couple for a few short weeks, he feels like he's found the girl of his dreams.

And now he's letting her go.

Sasuke sits in the driver's seat and turns the key in the ignition.

The engine hums to life, groaning slightly from underuse, and his hand drops mechanically to the gearshift. He closes his eyes as he remembers Sakura pestering him one day to teach her how to drive stick; there will be time to dwell on memories of the happiest days he'd ever spent once Konoha University is far behind him.

Even if Sakura is a cheating slut. Even if she's been leading him on this whole time. Even if she's slept with another guy, or a hundred other guys...even if she's carrying another guy's kid.

Even if all of that is true, Sasuke's still in love with her.

Which is exactly why he has to leave.

Their relationship, while idyllic at some spots, is tumultuous and uneven. They don't trust one another. They fight constantly. He's jealous and suspicious, she's uncomfortable and easily distressed. She makes him angrier than he's even been, and happier, all at the same time. She drives him crazy in bad and good ways.

It's a roller coaster he can't afford to ride. Not when his family's namesake is resting on his shoulders, not when his future's been decided for him and it's never included Sakura.

It's cowardly, he knows. A sick, spineless thing to do, sneaking off without telling anyone, relying on them to figure out the truth themselves and moving forward like nothing ever happened.

But Sasuke's always been a coward.

He reverses out of the parking space, still as calm as ever. Resigned to his fate, as it were: self-imposed isolation. He glances in his rearview mirror and sees something that might make him rethink this whole thing.

Sakura.

It's poetic. Cliche, even. That the moment he's ready to put her out of his life, there she is, looking more beautiful than he's ever seen her and green eyes wide and desperate and pleading. It's started to snow by now, and her cheeks are flushed with cold as powdery white dusts her shoulders and settles in her long pink hair like stars. She's so small, in her tiny brown leather jacket and skinny jeans and Chucks, and her lips are parted as she shakes her head minutely at him.

It's the final straw. Sasuke feels his cracking heart shatter completely, as he takes in all that he's leaving behind.

The most beautiful girl in the world, the kindest and the sweetest and the smartest, the funniest and the quirkiest and the bravest and the most confusing girl ever created. Suspicious and broken and untrustworthy and sneaky and a liar. All of it rolled into Haruno Sakura, and she's the girl he loves, and it isn't enough.

It's over, he realizes. Overoverover and it's her fault and it's his fault and he loves her too much to linger and point fingers and try to save something unsaveable. His heart's broken, this is rock bottom. Show's over, nothing left to see.

He tears his gaze from hers, allows that blessed numbness to claim him again, resigns himself to an empty life with an empty future and no Sakura in sight. And he pulls out of the parking lot and onto the main road. Konoha University is in his rearview mirror, Oto is in his future, and Sakura has carved herself a place so deep in his heart, he knows he can never shake her out, but he drives away anyway.

The last thing he sees of her is the pink scar on her neck, dark against her pale skin and noticeable even from the distance that separates them. And he knows that he will never know what's caused it.

Another secret.

Another mystery.

And he takes everything with him as he goes, but he leaves his heart with her.

xoxoxo

Sakura watches the Jetta disappear into the snowy evening.

It's impossible to breathe so she doesn't try. Snow's in her hair and her eyes but she doesn't blink or move; she's rooted to the spot. She just stares at the car as it gets smaller and smaller, and she feels her heart go with it.

He's leaving. He's leaving without a goodbye. Left, by now; his car is out of sight.

She's tired, then. Beyond her heartache, beyond the crushing sadness and the despair that threatens to never leave, she's tired. Beyond her anger, her rage, her confusion, her _I-didn't-deserve-this-why-is-he-doing-this-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this,_ beyond all of it, she's exhausted. Like she'll never sleep long enough to feel rested.

Almost in a trance, she makes her way back inside the building, blind to her friends and deaf to their greetings, their inquisitive queries wanting to know why she looks so pale. She'll never remember how she makes it up to her room, but she does. She shuts the door behind her, and locks it.

She lays down on the bed that feels too small now. Sasuke's scent lingers on her sheets, on the pillow cases. His hoodie is discarded on the floor so she puts it on automatically, and knows she only has a little while before his scent disappears from the green fabric and he's truly truly gone forever, so she buries herself in what lingers of his presence and curls up under her covers.

There are no tears. She's so _tired. _She wants to sleep forever, but knows it's impossible: Sakura's greatest strength and foulest curse is her ability to keep going, even when she doesn't want to.

There's more to her than Sasuke, she tells herself, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment. Even if it feels like happiness was always a myth, a cruelty in and of itself. Even if hope is nothing more than a silly kanji scrawled into the skin of her side like that would make it a reality.

There's more to Sakura than who she loves.

She's smart. She's going to be a doctor someday, and she will help more people than she hurts. She's a loyal friend; she needs to help Ino through her pregnancy, after all. And Karin could use some relationship advice when it comes to on-again, off-again boyfriend Suigetsu. And Tenten needs a workout buddy, and Sakura finds herself (miserably, horrifyingly) alone in that department...

And there's Naruto, of course. Her heart breaks for Naruto, who is losing his best friend and he doesn't even know it. Naruto, good kind sweet wonderful Naruto, who loves Sasuke like a brother, who is away visiting his girlfriend and doesn't know that when he comes back to Konoha, there will be no one to grumpily greet him in his room.

Sasuke leaves so much behind and Sakura feels sorry for him. Above her hurt, her anger, her confusion, she feels sorry for the boy who stole her heart and never returned it. Sorry for his self-imposed exile, sorry for his inability to trust, for his inability to get _better._

She curls into the pillows and inhales what little remains of his intoxicating scent, of wine and wood and painful goodbyes never uttered. She blinks back tears and succumbs to sleep.

When she wakes, it will be real.

Till then, she dreams of Sasuke, and the emptiness in his eyes as he turned the car out of the parking lot. She dreams of the little black Jetta growing smaller and smaller, blunt black against the snow, disappearing over the horizon.

...END PART ONE...

**note..** Thank you all for the helpful critiques, commentaries, questions, and interest. I can't believe how kind people are.

I'm 22 as of fifty minutes ago. So I ask that you celebrate my birthday the way I'm doing it: with strawberry wine and X-rated activities with the sexiest man on the planet. (Not Sasuke, kids. Preferably someone real.) Lolz. Just kidding. Have an amazing rest-of-your-weekend, go watch my Phillies sweep the Cardinals tomorrow as a birthday present to me, and stick around: more to come! Love you all.


	18. Distract

ONE YEAR LATER

xoxoxox

Baby Hana is sleeping soundly, and Sakura applauds herself for being a miracle worker.

Ino and Shikamaru struggle with their four-month-old daughter when it comes to bedtime, but Sakura prides herself on her ability to lull her goddaughter to sleep. Much to Ino's annoyance, Sakura is swiftly becoming Hana's favorite caregiver.

The apartment is quiet now. She watches the baby curl up under the light flannel blanket, tiny fingers clutching at air as she sleeps, and her heart swells with love. Hana is sweet and funny and smart for a little one, and as pretty as her mother; Sakura had been touched and delighted when Ino asked her to be godmother. Having a connection to someone as bubbly and beautiful and bright as Nara Hana makes her feel like she has a family.

Ino and Shikamaru are out on a much-needed date night, and Sakura, the favorite babysitter, saves the day yet again. Ino's been so busy with the baby and keeping up on her schoolwork, and Shikamaru's holding down a job between his engineering classes to finance their apartment. Sakura, when available, is more than happy to help out where she can.

It's eight. Now that Hana's down for the night (hopefully), she has time to tuck into her homework. She curls up on the sofa and cracks open a medical text.

Dr. Tsunade, a teaching physician and widely-recognized as the best doctor in recent memory, has accepted Sakura into an accelerated learning program. It's rare, a real honor; only once before has Tsunade taken on an apprentice to such an exclusive level, and that was Sakura's therapist, a woman named Shizune.

Shizune is one of the very few people on Earth who know about That Night. Sakura thinks on how the world is so vast but so tiny all at once, and smiles wistfully to herself. Tsunade made an excellent psychiatrist out of Shizune, and she is confident that she too will become a fine doctor someday with Tsunade's instruction.

It's difficult. Difficult and time-consuming, between the extra credits she's taking to qualify for the advanced program and the apprentice hours at the hospital she's required to work. Some days she is too tired to sleep, even, but this is the best thing that could have happened for her.

She hasn't had time to think. No time to slow down and contemplate much of anything besides school-hospital-friends-Hana-Kiba.

Kiba.

She smiles as she thinks of him.

After Sasuke's departure (she can finally think his name without a twinge of sadness), Kiba was wonderful to her. A friend to confide in, and it slowly evolved to something more, something deeper. Sakura is seeing him now, and it's a casual thing, but it's a welcome distraction. He's good. He's just a good person. He understands how busy and hectic her schedule is. He understands her priorities.

Most of all he understands why she can't, won't love him.

She reads the same passage about mitosis a few hundred times as she reflects on the various ways she will never deserve Inuzuka Kiba.

He does not expect anything from her that she is not willing and able to give. She confided in him one night about That Night, and his reaction was instant acceptance, and because of that, he never pushed her into anything. He made his feelings for her clear: he liked her, and he wanted a relationship with her, but he understood about Sasuke.

Sakura is not quite certain she understands about Sasuke. She has not seen him since he left freshman year, has deleted him from her phone and her life and refuses to discuss what happened. Everyone learned from the start not to push her on it, and so he is nothing more than a phantom, a ghost, one who took all the love she had to give and maybe still has her heart, even though he doesn't deserve it.

Sakura loves Kiba, but she is not in love with him. What they have is shallow, much shallower than she feels he really wants from her, but he seems willing to take what she will give him. And she tries to give him everything she can, and hopes maybe one day she will fall in love.

Kiba seems willing to wait.

Her phone buzzes, and she glances down to find a text from him, and she smiles.

From: Kiba :)

Hey, gorgeous, whatcha up to?

Sakura giggles, flattered, and sets her book down and settles into the cushions of Ino's hand-me-down couch instead, content to text her not-quite-boyfriend and forget about the boy with the too-dark eyes who stole her heart a year ago and maybepossiblyshewon'teveradmitit never let it go.

xoxoxo

It's December.

Oto is somewhat warmer than other areas, which means Sasuke has yet to see snow. But that's fine by him, because snow reminds him of Her, and threatens to crack the stone he's laid around his heart.

His third college semester is completed. Orochimaru, a celebrated attorney and law professor, has taken him under his wing, seduced, like so many others, by the residual influence of his surname. Sasuke allows himself to be commandeered, because for as unsavory as Orochimaru's methods are, he is also the best, and as an Uchiha, he is expected to be the same.

He has fallen into a routine. Classes, working out, taking walks. Nothing else. He refuses the temptation of women, who find him as appealing as the girls back in Konoha did; he denies invitations to join fraternities, all of whom would kill to have an Uchiha in their ranks. His social life is all but nonexistent because he has no time to fraternize with directionless undergrads.

He learned his lesson back in Konoha. Friends are distractions.

Girlfriends are worse.

It's not to say he hasn't thought about Her. Some days are easier than others to ignore Her, mostly when he's got his nose so close to the grindstone that he feels like he might absorb the information through osmosis rather than reading. Some nights he can manage the longing and bitterness when he's too tired to dwell on it, when there is no twenty-minute delay between wakefulness and sleep to contemplate all the ways he tore them down.

But there are other days.

Days when he's flicking through channels and happens upon a black-and-white movie; it's easy to remember Her then, and the way her eyes would shine as she watched the decades-old film like it was gold. The Phillies won the most recent World Series, and he thinks how happy she must be about it, thinks how she would have gloated to him until he kissed her silent. Sometimes, when sunlight streams through the (always-closed) blinds of his window and bathes his bedroom in warm light, he remembers the way she looked first thing in the morning, sleeping in the crook of his arm with a smile tilting her pretty pink lips.

It's hard to forget, on those days.

He's heard about Her, of course. Naruto (persistent as ever) in his many calls and angry texts and furious emails tells him all about Her. She's doing well, he knows. First in the class, apprenticing under the best doctor around, a woman whom even Orochimaru admires for her skill and wit. Happy and popular and even prettier, if the rumors are to be believed, and Sasuke doesn't doubt Naruto. He never has.

And she isn't pregnant. Isn't a mother. She's a godmother instead, to Ino's baby.

Sasuke sighs, his hands deep in his pockets as he walks aimlessly around the vast Oto campus. It was never Sakura's baby; she'd been keeping the secret for Ino all along.

So he _is_ an asshole, for leaving without letting her explain herself.

But this was always the conclusion he was bound to reach: that they were too different and too similar to work. He was too suspicious and she was too mysterious. They were a volatile combination. He focuses on all the ways they would have died, rather than all the ways she made him happy, because it's hard enough missing her without making it excruciating.

He's on track now. Focused and ready. Even if Oto isn't his family's alma mater, he knows they would be proud of him. He's on pace to graduate valedictorian in an accelerated law degree program. He's going to go to law school and become the best damn lawyer of the century, and redeem his dead family, and there's nothing left to distract him from that.

Sasuke parlays each academic success into his ever-growing list of (delusions) reasons why leaving Konoha was the right move. He stifles each moment of longing, buries it beneath his goals and never dwells on it. He doesn't allow himself more than a few moments to miss baseball training with Naruto, to wonder what Ino's kid looks like, to think on drinking games with Shikamaru and the other guys.

But he tortures himself daily with thoughts of Her. Where she is, what she's doing, who she's with. If she thinks of him with any fondness at all, or if she hates him for his betrayal (as well she should.) He wonders if her panic attacks have subsided, increased, disappeared. He wonders if she's more outgoing now. He wonders if she lies still, or maybe has found cause and courage to be honest.

He wonders if she's figured out how beautiful she is.

He tries not to wonder these things, but Sakura, in his life or out, strips him of his control time and time again.

xoxoxo

Kiba's grinning at her in the threshold and he's got a flower in his hand that he presses into her hand, and he drops a kiss to her cheek and says, "Hey, gorgeous."

He's handsome. In a bad boyish kind of way, with a rapier wit and a sharp tongue and an easy smirk, but Sakura knows it's all for show, that inside he's as good as gold and sweet as pie. She thinks on how she has a type, for sure: outwardly badass, inwardly kind.

"Hey!" she says happily, because she's happy to see him, always. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugs. "Finished my shit early, thought you might want help with Hana-chan. Or company, or whatever."

Eloquent he's not, but Sakura doesn't need eloquence as she gestures him inside. "She's sleeping, so keep your voice down."

Kiba follows her in and she shuts the door behind him before patting the sofa for him to sit, and he does, tugging her down beside him. "How was your day, beautiful?"

"Really good," she replies emphatically, because it was. "Great, actually. Tsunade-shishou has me in clinic duty at the hospital with her, she showed me-"

She's cut off by a loud stomach rumble and Kiba chuckles bashfully.

"You're hungry?" she asks him, amused.

"Always, babe. I'm a man."

"You're a _boy,_" she corrects him, and giggles when he kisses her. "Now sit still, I'll make something for you. What are you in the mood for?"

"You," he replies automatically, and she laughs again.

"Linguini it is!"

She moves to the kitchen while Kiba flicks on the TV in the living room and sets it to a low volume, so as not to wake the baby. There's something curiously domestic about the whole situation, she realizes: a significant other, a baby, a meal. It's curious. Is this how things happen in normal families?

Sakura has never known a normal family. She's known angry Daddy who hits when he's drunk, and shallow Mommy who doesn't care. She's never had someone to cook or care for her, so she resolves to do the same for everyone else, whenever she can. It's why she's an excellent babysitter, a fierce friend, and the best almost-girlfriend she can possibly be.

She sets the water boiling on the stove and boils the noodles and stirs the sauce, and she is unsurprised to feel a strong arm wrap around her waist from behind, and lips press against her neck.

"You look so fucking good there," Kiba growls in her ear. "Cooking and shit. So good."

She laughs. "Easy, Tiger, this is a delicate process."

He rolls his eyes and chuckles, the sound deep near her ear. "I'm sure. Good practice for you future surgeons, yeah? Steady hands and whatever."

"Exactly. I take my culinary experimentations very seriously, Kiba."

"Tch. You're making spaghetti."

"It's _linguini._ And unless you want to eat it off the floor, keep your hands to yourself and sit _down._ If you wake Hana-chan there won't be enough left of you to bury."

"Man I love it when you talk dirty," he growled, and they both laughed as he returned to the sofa to await Sakura's culinary masterpiece.

Once alone, Sakura enjoys the dwindling feeling of warmth that always accompanies Kiba's presence. He's so funny and fun and sweet to her, complimentary and sincere. He's loyal and reliable, handsome and smarter than he thinks, and a devil and a sweetheart all at once.

But her heart aches, because she loves him, but she isn't in love with him, and she hopes that will change.

She hopes that she isn't still in love with someone else.

xoxoxo

Sasuke isn't as surprised as he feels he should be, when he sees a kid with messy blonde hair leaning against a beat-up orange Passat with folded arms.

Naruto.

His best friend (are they still?) does not look angry. In fact, he looks excited, almost like he expected this might happen, this grand clash of friends-turned-whatever-they-are-now.

"Dobe," Sasuke says automatically.

"Hey, teme!" Naruto choruses, like nothing's different, like nothing's changed, like they're still (inseparable) close and there isn't a hundred miles and a million words dividing them. "Done your classes?"

"Aa," Sasuke replies. He's suspicious of this interaction; last he heard from Naruto, the blonde was raving mad demanding he come at once back to Konoha University, complete with all sorts of insults and name-calling. This discussion is almost-friendly.

He's wary.

"Good!" Naruto says with satisfaction. "Then you can come with me back to KU."

"Dobe-"

"For a visit!" Naruto clarifies, laughing. "Geez, man, I know you got nothin' else goin' on over break." Like Sasuke has a family to go back to. "We're still in session for another week, but you should come with me to see everyone. We all miss you, man!"

"No."

He moves to shove past Naruto and continue on his walk like he never saw him, but Naruto perseveres.

"I'm not gonna try and talk you into transferring back," Naruto says. "You're here for your own reasons, and I don't agree with them, but I understand you got shit to prove. All I'm saying is come see everyone you dicked out of a goodbye."

The wording aggravates him. And then he's angry because he's aggravated, and irritated that he's angry, and that's always been the problem with Naruto and the others. They make him feel things, things he should have the apathy to ignore. He feels guilt and anger and annoyance and _longing_ all at once.

He's conditioned himself _not_ to feel these things, and Naruto shows up one day and starts chipping away at the much-needed ice around his heart like it's nothing.

He can't go back.

He knows he can't go back.

He has a new life now, centered around his goals and his deadgoneforever family and success and nothing less than the best. He has his routine, and he has his priorities, and they don't, _can't_ include the people he left behind a year ago. He's 19 and maybe even more fucked up than he was back in Konoha, but at least he's got a direction now, even if he isn't happy.

So he has to stay. He can't go to Konoha; if he goes to Konoha, he might not have the strength to be able to leave it again.

"No, dobe." His voice is calm, and betrays none of his inner turmoil, and he has to wonder if it convinces Naruto, who can see right through him like he's made of glass. "Go back. I'm not coming." _Can't come._ "It's a waste of time." _Wish I could. _"I have a new life now." _I missed you, man._ "Don't come back." _Where is she?_

And Naruto laughs, because Naruto _can_ see right through him.

"Who do you think you're kidding, teme?" he snickers, and the wind ruffles his blonde hair and he grins wide enough for the sun to reflect off his teeth. "Think it over, at least. I ain't leaving till tonight anyways. Come back if you got the balls to see what you've been missing!"

And Sasuke stares at the beat-up orange Passat, with its ripped-up upholstery and the chipped paint and the smell of rotten dairy emanating from the back, and not for the first time in his life, he has no clue what he's supposed to do next.

xoxoxo

Kiba's sleeping on the sofa. Shikamaru and Ino aren't back yet, and Hana's still in her crib, and Sakura sits alone at the dining room table.

It's late. She's tired but not tired enough to sleep, plus she has anxiety about sleeping while on babysitting duty anyway, so she won't. Her homework's done, completed a few minutes ago, and Kiba's not awake to distract her with playful kisses and teasing banter and all the reasons she wishes she could love him the way he deserved.

So now it's just her and her thoughts, and Sakura doesn't like to be alone with those.

It's been awhile since her last anxiety attack. She's been too busy lately, and the more time passes, the less she begins to fear. She's growing stronger and stronger, bolstered by her friendships and her commitments and a sweet boy in a leather jacket who's trying to make her happy. And also, something within her, a fire inside of Sakura herself, one that was stamped on but never snuffed out, and now is growing in potency.

She is no longer the weak, frightened little girl she was when she first came to college. Tsunade saw to that. Naruto and Ino and Kiba saw to that. And Sakura saw to that on her own.

Still, she has an uneasy time here and there. Nothing terrifying like it used to be, but uncomfortable, like she needs to be prepared for something, but she isn't sure what it is or when it will happen.

She hears soft crying and sighs. Hana-chan's awake, it seems, so she slips quietly into the room and collects the baby from her crib, lifting her onto her hip and bouncing her lightly to soothe her.

"Shh," she hushes, her fingers stroking white blonde hair as fine as silk, and giant blue weepy eyes look at her full of tears. "It's okay, baby. Shhh, I'm here. Auntie's here, don't cry. Don't cry, baby, everything's all right. You're okay, pretty girl."

It's odd. Sakura used to croon to herself, in her own head. She remembers the mantras she hasn't needed to consult in months, and marvels at how similar they are to the coos and shushes she gives to the baby in her arms.

She's come a long way, she realizes.

She receives a text then, and thinks it's probably Ino begging more time for her date night, so she opens her phone and coos to a sniffling Hana, "Look, baby, Mama's texting me, maybe she'll be home soon?"

But the text isn't from Ino.

From: Naruto

On my way back to KU. Be back in awhile. He's coming.

And Sakura wonders, as the phone crashes to the floor and she miraculously keeps her grip on Hana, if she has come any ways at all. Because Naruto's bringing Him, and Sakura realizes she isn't quite as strong as she would like to be.

xoxoxo

**note..** Hey howdy hey and thanks for the birthday wishes! Couldn't resist getting this out in between my parties. My fiancee's starting to wonder why the hell I'm on the computer all the damn time. But a woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets, as you Titanic fans will know. And whenever I tell him that, he rolls his eyes and loses interest.

I'm glad that no one threatened my life with the end of Part One, I was expecting the backlash of "What the hell" and "I hate you" and "Fix it or I'll kill you", but instead, it was well-received and I'm glad you're giving me a chance to tell the story! Sex ain't the end to a love story, y'all. With any luck, it's the beginning. Stay tuned! Love you.


	19. Decide

Hana is awake now and hungry.

In a daze, Sakura shoulders her goddaughter more securely and moves to the kitchen to collect a bottle; she tests the temperature against her wrist, then sits, almost in a stupor, at the kitchen table to feed the hungry baby.

All this, she does automatically, while her heart races and her mind races and her blood races and all she can think is, _He's coming he's coming he's coming._

She has no way of knowing how close they are. How Naruto convinced him to come. She has no idea what to do or say. She hasn't the slightest clue if she is prepared for the reunion, but she doubts she is.

Things have changed.

Sakura is her own person now. She defines herself and does not need a strong shoulder to cry on anymore. She might have blamed herself once for the demise of their brief but intense relationship, but no longer; she has worth, she knows, and she's not all the way healed yet, but she's definitely close.

What will seeing Sasuke again do to her recovery?

She hasn't been this nervous since Hana spiked a fever a few weeks after her birth and frightened everyone to death. It feels like her heart's pounding too hard for her body, and she holds Hana tighter, closer, and can't believe she's trying to seek comfort from an infant.

There's hammering on the door then. Sakura swears under her breath, sets down the half-full bottle, picks up Hana, and moves to the door. Ino and Shikamaru are drunk again, she realizes, and have forgotten their key, and damn it don't they know how irresponsible it is to-

She opens the door and everything stops. Her heart, her thoughts, her breath.

Because standing in the threshold is Uchiha Sasuke.

xoxoxo

Here she is.

Sasuke keeps his face devoid of emotion, his eyes calm, his jaw relaxed. He's slouching, hands in his pockets, and nothing about his appearance suggests he is remotely affected by her presence.

Inside, he is a hailstorm.

Because she is impossibly lovelier than she was that terrible day she stood in the snow, pleading with her eyes for him to stay. She's cut her hair, her long flowy hair shorn to just below her shoulders in flippy layers and waves that highlight the angles of her flawless face. She's still petite, lithe and toned, her eyes bright, her lips parted slightly in awe.

She's holding a baby on one hip. Sasuke glances at Yamanaka's daughter and sees that she looks nothing like Sakura at all, that she is proof of his unwarranted doubt in the girl he might have married someday, if he wasn't such a dick and she wasn't such a headcase. The baby turns big blue eyes on him in curiosity, as if she can't place why he's there.

Well, Sasuke can't, either.

"Sasuke," Sakura breathes, his name a phenomenon on her lips. Her voice is as he remembered it, lilting and smooth, and he resists the urge to close his eyes as her intoxicating scent fills his nostrils. Her eyes search his face as if for confirmation that it's really him.

_How could I leave you?_ he thinks wildly. It comes rushing back to him that moment, standing on the stoop of Shikamaru's apartment and locked in this frenzied miasma of nostalgia. The way she brought him to life with one touch of her satiny hands. The unmatchable highs she brought him to, the dizzying lows. Only one girl, one person has evoked so many emotions from him, and she's standing here even more beautiful than he remembers her, looking up at him with honest, open eyes...

"Baby doll? What's going on, why are you-"

Sasuke's blood runs cold. Their moment is interrupted by the arrival of Inuzuka Kiba, one of the guys he grew up with, standing shirtless next to Sakura and looking on at the guests gathered on the stoop.

"Oh," Kiba mutters. "Uchiha."

"I brought him with me, Kiba!" Naruto exclaims happily, proudly, his arm slung lazily around Sasuke's shoulders. But there's roaring in Sasuke's ears, roaring so loud and distracting that it's all he can do to remain as apathetic as he wants to appear; he doesn't even have the presence of mind to shrug off Naruto, to run right back to Oto and fucking stay there.

She didn't wait for him.

_You can't blame her,_ he thinks wildly. _You can't blame her when you're the one who ended it. You didn't even say goodbye. You can't blame her for moving on._

Kiba, he knows, is a good guy. He is confident he treats her well. And isn't this what he wanted anyway? The best for Sakura? A normal, well-adjusted guy to take care of her and see to it that she was happy? Yes, these are all things he wanted for her, and now she has them.

He silences the tiny voice reminding him that he wanted to be that guy for her. That he was once.

"Inuzuka."

Sakura hasn't moved. The baby in her arms clings to her neck like a koala, curious and confused and tired, since it's so late. She doesn't respond to Kiba's arm around her waist, and Sasuke notes that she must feel extremely comfortable around Kiba not to react negatively; before this, Sasuke was the only boy who could put his hhands on her without any negative repercussions. But times have changed, Sasuke's changed, and it seems Sakura's changed as well.

But for all her differences, something remains the same.

At the sound of his voice, Sakura restores her shields. He watches as she rebuilds the concrete, impenetrable walls around herself, watches as she blinks and suddenly her wide eyes are guarded. She shies away from him, leans closer into Kiba and holds the baby in her arms tighter and the look she shoots him now is almost wary. Like she's afraid of him.

Sasuke clenches his hands tightly in his pockets and ignores the way Kiba and Naruto are talking comfortably because all he can focus on is never letting it show on his face how this is affecting (destroying) him. He is reaping what he's sown.

And it's for the best.

It's all for the best.

It just feels like the end of the world. That's all.

xoxoxo

Sakura has the presence of mind to smile shakily at her visitors, her boys, together for the first time in a year, and inside Shikamaru and Ino's apartment they go. The boys take a seat in the living room while Sakura moves to put Hana to sleep again, glad for the excuse to step away from the situation and collect her thoughts.

Her heart is pounding in her chest, and she wonders how much harder it can pump before she succumbs to cardiac arrest.

This is not how she expected to spend the evening.

Sasuke's back. It's temporary, she's certain, and soon she will have to watch him leave again and pretend like it won't kill her. But he's here right now, twenty feet away with nothing but a hallway to separate them. His presence, even in Hana-chan's room, is overwhelming; he smells like he used to, he smells wonderful like the scent he left on her sheets that faded after a few days.

He's as handsome as he always was, perhaps more so, or maybe she's just missed him so much that she's romanticizing. But it doesn't matter, because there is a wall between them still. One stronger and sturdier than Kiba, her kind-of-boyfriend who she loves but isn't in love with.

This is a wall they built themselves. And Sakura will be goddamned before she tears it back down.

He left her. He gained her trust (mostly) and made her love him. He made her fall so deep and hard in love with him that she maybesortofnevergonnaadmitit is still in love with him, and maybe that's why she can't love Kiba the way she wants to. He did that, he did it all, he held her like she mattered and kissed her like he meant it; he became her closest friend and slept with her like he wanted nothing more in the world. All those things, he did, and then he left her.

He took the heart she gave him willingly, and crushed it in his hands, and left, without so much as a goodbye, let alone an explanation. And Sakura, not for the first time, found herself needing to start over from scratch, to pick up what remained of her dignity and patch her wounded heart back together again.

Sakura grips the bars around Hana's crib tightly, watching the baby drift off to sleep through blurry eyes. Tears burn but she won't let them fall, because she's learned that tears are precious and should not be wasted on boys, because boys don't waste tears or time on girls.

It's quiet in the room now as Sakura battles back the urge to break down entirely. She's stronger than this, she reminds herself, forcing herself to breathe when all she wants to do is choke. She's better than this.

There's a throat clearing from behind and she knows without looking who it is, but she doesn't turn around to face him. She won't let him see what he does to her.

"You look good," Sasuke's voice, deeper than she remembers, but it could just be because she hasn't heard him speak in so long, rumbles from the doorway. He makes no attempt to come closer and she thanks every deity that she isn't crying. "Different."

"Yeah," Sakura says shakily. She pretends to fiddle with Hana-chan's onesie to have an excuse not to look at him. "Uh, thanks. Cut my hair and whatever."

"Hn."

He isn't stressed out, she notes. He isn't two steps away from a complete emotional meltdown like she is. And she resents that fact, but it also gives her cause to take what he's giving her and dishing it right back. If Sasuke won't acknowledge their past, if he will greet her with apathy, like nothing's happened between them, then she will do the same to him in return.

The resolution calms her, and she tucks the little blanket under Hana-chan's chin and turns back to face Sasuke with a smile that feels tighter than she hopes it looks.

"You look good too," she offers, leaning casually against the crib with her arms folded in what she tells herself _isn't_ a protective gesture. Like she's trying to hold herself together. She tries for casual and hopes it doesn't come off as pretentious. "Surprised to see you, though."

"Hn."

"Ever the conversationalist," she quips. "How'd Naruto get you to come? Bribery? Extortion?"

And Sasuke frowns and doesn't answer, like he's not quite sure how Naruto managed this either. His hands are still in his pockets, and he shifts his shoulders somewhat awkwardly.

Awkward. It's awkward between them, she realizes. Tense, the air full of sharp edges and if they aren't careful, they might cut themselves. She feels claustrophobic, trapped in this little tiny room with its tiny walls closing in on her, and Sasuke's blocking her only exit like a stormcloud out of her saddest memories. She wants to leave, she realizes, wants it more than anything, wants it more than she's ever wanted anything.

"Hana-chan's sleeping," she says quietly, making for the door. "'Scuse me."

Sasuke moves to the side to let her go. Seems like it's the only thing he's ever been really good at doing, when it came to her.

"Nice seeing you again," she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, before she leaves the room. She feels his eyes on her back but can't bring herself to turn around.

She says she's stronger than this. She hopes she is.

But she's not so sure anymore.

xoxoxo

Sasuke knows he can't run back to Oto (Naruto's his ride) but he would like nothing more at the moment.

Seeing Sakura's discomfort, sensing her unease around him, reading the ill-suppressed hurt brimming in her guarded eyes, he feels all the stabbing pain of their break-up (his fault) all over again. It's raw now where he thought it was only scars, harmless reminders of past agony but instead it feels fresh, like it was only moments ago he left her standing in the snow.

How could he have thought he was ready to see her again?

She's like heaven and hell to him. Even more achingly, absurdly beautiful than he remembers, changed and different and evolved all without him; everything he's ever wanted, everything he can never have. The girl of his dreams, the girl he threw away.

She all but flees from the room. She's putting on a brave face, to be sure, same as him, acting like they're okay with this, okay with each other. But she's not okay with him, and he resents himself too much to expect anything different. He broke her heart, didn't trust her, left her without a word.

Sasuke sighs and stops himself.

There's no sense in this self-loathing right now. He can't escape this place till the week's up, but he doesn't plan on letting them all know how much this kills him. Sasuke has a new life after all. And it's organized and there's a routine and he isn't happy but he's doing what he needs to and don't they see this was best for all of them? Don't they see how much better off Sakura is without him?

And the thought kills him, but it's motivation enough to follow Sakura back into the living room. And he doesn't look up at her when she sits next to Kiba and engages Naruto in conversation; he takes a seat alone on the armchair and tries to freeze up the scalded areas of his heart.

He will protect himself with ice, until he leaves again.

And there won't be a next time.

xoxoxo

Ino and Shikamaru come home a few minutes later, and Sakura doesn't wait to hear their reactions to their unexpected houseguest, sitting quietly on one of the armchairs. Instead, she jumps up from the couch, backpack in hand, and says quickly, "Got to get back to my room, lots of studying!"

It's a terrible excuse. Terrible and it wreaks of dishonesty and cowardice, but Sakura's choking on her own fear and it's all she can do to smile like nothing's wrong.

Ino sees through it immediately. There's no hiding from your best friend, and Ino is probably the only person on the face of the Earth who understands Sakura's feelings towards Sasuke. Sakura tries to convey the urgency of her departure through her eyes, and Ino nods imperceptibly.

"Thanks for baby-sitting, Forehead," she says with a grin. "Kiba, walk her back to her dorm, don't be an ass."

"Shut up, Ino," Kiba laughs, standing with Sakura. "Like I'd let this pretty thing wander around at night by herself, why do you think I came here in the first place?"

"By the looks of things," Shikamaru remarks dryly, "to eat our food, sleep on our couch, and keep our daughter awake."

The atmosphere is considerably less tense, and Sakura is grateful, but she still needs to leave. She longs for the peace and solitude of her dorm room, and hopes Kiba won't ask to stay the night, because right now, more than anything, Sakura needs to be alone with her thoughts.

"Let's go," she says to him quietly. To the others, she says, "Okay, we'll see you guys later! It was good seeing you again, Sasuke, it's been awhile."

She doesn't wait for his reply. It's not his style to give one anyway. Instead, she smiles sweetly and slides her hand through Kiba's and they leave the apartment in a hurry.

It's cold out, almost bitterly so, and the heavy dark sky threatens snow, but Sakura has never felt so happy to be outside. The claustrophobia, the stifling tension of the little apartment disappear into the crisp night air, and she feels free; every step from Sasuke loosens the coil in her stomach.

Kiba's unusually quiet as they head back through the dark streets towards the campus a few blocks away. By now he would be teasing her mercilessly, flirting shamelessly, muttering dark promises of what he wanted to do with her when they got back, but it's quiet. Maybe he senses her need for calmness right now.

"So what happens now?" he asks. "Now that Uchiha's back."

Or maybe he's threatened.

Their footsteps echo oddly loud on the sidewalks; the town is asleep, the streetlights humming overhead, and Sakura feels the tension thick all over again. This isn't a conversation she's ready to have, because she isn't sure how she's feeling. She needs time to think things over, time to prepare herself for whatever is to come, but the universe seems hellbent on forcing her into impossible situations tonight.

"I don't know what you mean," she sighs, even though she does. She pulls her peacoat tighter around her body and slides her hand from his, under the pretense of wanting to warm it in her coat pockets, but really she just wants to be alone.

"Come on, Sakura. You know exactly what I mean. Things ended bad for you guys, and-"

"That's just it." Her tone is clipped but she can't bring herself to care and is it too fucking much to just want to go to sleep? "It _ended._ It's _over,_ Kiba. End of story. As far as me and Sasuke go...it's ancient history, and barely even that. A fling."

"You didn't want it to end," he says, omniscient and annoyingly so and Sakura feels exposed, like he's probing her thoughts before she has a chance to interpret them herself. "And neither did he."

They stop walking, and now Sakura's angry. At a lot of things, and unfortunately there's only Kiba, funnycharmingsexy Kiba who can bear the brunt of her anger. But she's had enough for one night, she can only take so much before she snaps.

"If he didn't want it to end," she says harshly, "then he wouldn't have ended it. He left without even saying _goodbye,_ Kiba. Never answered my calls or texts or anything, it was like we never met, like he never existed and I want it to _stay_ that way!"

Kiba looks agitated. He folds his arms across his broad chest and says back, "If you're so over this, why are you getting so worked up?"

"Bottom line, Sasuke and I are over. Forever. Permanently. I'm with you because I choose to be. I like you very much, you know, and you're making all of this so much harder than it needs to be."

"That's what she said," Kiba quips, but she finds absolutely nothing funny about the situation, and he changes tack.

"All right, look, Sakura, I'll level with you. You and I are...having a good time. Right? We enjoy each other's company. I like kissing you and touching you and I think you like it, too. You're pretty comfortable with where we're at, right?"

"Yes," she says, because it's true. She's perfectly fine. She's content with what she has and doesn't want or hope or try for anything more than that.

And maybe that's the problem.

Kiba certainly thinks so.

"But you're not in love with me," he says with a grin, almost like he's expected this all along.

Sakura decides to be honest right back. "Kiba I'm not sure I have it in me to love anybody. Not like that anyway. And you knew that. So please don't hold it against me."

"Sweetheart, you've got enough room in your heart for every guy in the world." He tucks a stray curl behind her ear fondly. "You could be in love with me, you know. I'm an easy guy to love. It's just a matter of reshuffling your priorities. Understand?"

She doesn't.

"The only way you can ever be in love with me is if you let him go." Kiba's voice is gentle, understanding. It isn't an ultimatum. It's a statement of fact. "I'm not a patient guy but if you asked me to wait for you, I would. I'm not afraid of falling in love with you, hell, I already started to."

"Kiba..."

He chuckles. "Look, baby. I'm not asking for anything right now from you. I know you and him were pretty tight back then, and now that he's back...who knows. It was my fault for moving in on you when things were still raw. Unfinished business and all that bullshit. And if you want him, I get it...I saw what everyone else saw back then."

"What?" she asks softly. Tears are in her eyes because Kiba is so damn _good_ and she doesn't fucking deserve him to be. "What'd you see?"

Kiba looks up wistfully at the cloudy night sky.

"That you loved him the right way," he replies cryptically. "And that he loved you all wrong, but it was still love. And he's got me beat there."

"What are you saying, Kiba?"

"I'm saying, I want you to think long and hard this week. All right? And if you pick him, if you want to hang onto him and hope things work out, I won't blame you and I won't stop you and we'll be friends just like always, only without the sex and the me calling you all hours of the day and night to tell you how easy it'd be to fall for you.

"And if you let him go, then I'll be here waiting. And I'll tell you every minute how gorgeous you are. And I'll never hurt you because you're great, and it'll be easy and you'll be happy and I'll be happy. But the choice is up to you, and whatever you decide, I'll support you."

Sakura is going to cry, she knows. Because Kiba is wonderful and he understands her without any effort at all. And he respects her indecision and he says he'll support her even if what she decides to do is end things with him in favor of the asshole who broke her heart. And she believes he will support her because Kiba has never lied to her about anything, never once. And she trusts him in a way she's never trusted Sasuke.

But does she love him? Can she ever?

Until she knows that...until she banishes Sasuke from the recesses of her heart...Sakura has too many questions to make a decision.

She will take Kiba's gift of time and she will use it. She will be smart from now on. She will protect herself and she will find a way to be happy even if it kills her.

And she kisses him on the cheek and they walk back to their building, and Kiba doesn't ask to stay because he senses she wants to be alone. And she adores him for his understanding and she heads inside and she lays down on her bed still dressed, boots still on, hat still resting on her shiny pink hair. And she doesn't pull the covers up, because she's too tired to do anything but shut her eyes and sleep.

And that night she dreams of too-dark eyes and a deep voice in her ear, and Sakura knows the truth even if she hates it:

She's not over Sasuke.

Not even close.

xoxoxo

**note..** Hey y'all :) I got a couple of questions, so to clarify: I'm using present tense because this story deals with stream-of-consciousness, in-the-moment type of situations. The idea is to present Sasuke and Sakura's love story through their own heads, and in your head, you don't think of things in past tense, everything's happening in-the-now. It was important to me to describe things the way Sasuke and Sakura are seeing them happen, rather than utilize the objectivity of past tense; this way, you can get a peek into their fucked up heads more organically.

And someone else wanted to know why I don't accept anonymous reviewers, to get more reviews. Well, same reason other people don't: I like to be able to discuss my story, and defend it if necessary, and that's impossible to do if people are reviewing anonymously. Not that every anonymous reviewer is a troll or anything; it's just been my experience that anonymous reviews can be bad news, and I'm trying to improve my writing, not let someone take cheap shots at it, or demand updates without commenting or critiquing what I do. Not to offend anyone, of course :)

Hope that clears things up! Stick around, more to come soon :) Love you guys.


	20. Mistake

Naruto has not taken another roommate, Sasuke notes.

Instead he finds himself back on the fourth floor of Hokage Hall, in front of Room 428, and Naruto opens the door to reveal the room almost exactly as he left it a year ago. Naruto's side is as messy as ever, and there's still the lingering odor of spoiled milk and sweat that doesn't bother Sasuke nearly as much as it should. The only thing to have changed is the pictures on the wall, which have increased in number and feature Sakura nearly as often as Hinata, Naruto's girlfriend from back home.

It's nostalgia and regret all at once, being back in this cramped room he called home once-upon-a-time. Nostalgia because it's almost exactly the way he remembers it to be, regret because in these recent pictures, he can see the way everyone changed and stayed the same all at once. It's evidence, that even though he left, the world kept spinning without him.

_I shouldn't be back here,_ he thinks. Seeing Kiba's arm around Sakura's shoulders had been painful enough, but all of this is torture. _What was I thinking, coming back?_

"Weird, huh?" Naruto asks, and Sasuke glances at his once-upon-a-best-friend to find that he's staring wistfully up at the ceiling, at nothing in particular. "You being back here. It's got to be weird for you."

Sasuke doesn't reply. "Weird" is an understatement. "Horrifying" sounds more appropriate. "Agonizing."

"We really missed you, man. Even if..." Naruto trails off, and Sasuke knows that this conversation is inevitable.

"I know that...you and Sakura-chan..."

"I'm not talking about this." Sasuke's voice is firm, but he knows Naruto, and he knows that no matter how much time passes, Naruto will retain his innate persistence. He sits in the dusty desk chair he once spent so many hours in and tries to steel himself against the imminent onslaught.

Naruto does not disappoint.

"You can hide and lie to everyone in the world but you should know by now I ain't buying it," he says firmly. The door is shut behind him, drowning out the existence of everyone and everything except Sasuke, Naruto, and the year's separation between them. Everything Sasuke's managed to suppress over the past year threatens to make a grand reappearance, and he's deeply, instantly furious.

"You left without a _word,_ teme," Naruto snaps. "You have any idea what that did to Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke has an idea. He has an idea because he knows Sakura better than Naruto gives him credit for. Better, in fact, than most anybody. At least, once-upon-a-time.

He does not want to hear this. He does not want to hear the details of Sakura's suffering after he left her. He has had a difficult enough time these long long months since it happened, picturing the way she must have felt, a girl as raw and wounded as she was to start. His betrayal must have been unimaginable.

"She never talked about it," Naruto continues, unwilling or unable to start. "Wouldn't let any of us talk about it. She just...I never saw her cry, teme, it's like she didn't have anymore tears. It's like it went beyond crying for her, like she couldn't..."

"_I'm not talking about this, Naruto._" Sasuke's voice is menacing and violent and laced with panic. He stares hard at the corkboard behind the desk like it's the most compelling object on Earth but really he can't meet Naruto's eyes. Can't handle the accusation that is sure to be there in blue eyes. "You don't know anything about what happened with us. Don't pretend like you do. I had my reasons."

"What were they?" Naruto demands, getting angry. "'Cuz you damn sure didn't tell any of US!"

"I don't owe you anything," Sasuke snaps.

"YES YOU DO, YOU ASSHOLE! I'M YOUR BEST FRIEND!"

Sasuke's on his feet but he can't remember moving. He's clenching his hands into fists and his nails are scraping the palms of his hands. He's so so _angry,_ like the past few months, he hasn't eradicated his anger, he's only compartmentalized it, and now it's pouring out of him all at once.

"I thought she was _pregnant,_ dobe!" he hisses.

But this isn't enough of an explanation. Naruto frowns in confusion, then his eyes grow wide and soon he's on his feet, too, looking more than ready to throw a punch.

"THAT'S why you left?" Naruto shouts. "You thought you knocked her up? So you _left her?_"

"You don't understand," Sasuke grits out, but Naruto's even angrier than he is.

"What if she _had_ been? You were gonna leave her and your kid like-"

"She _wasn't,_ idiot, she-"

"That's not the point!"

"You don't _get it,_ dobe. I _had_ to leave!"

"WHY?"

Sasuke's hard-core panicking now. He feels raw and exposed, stretched out and examined like a medical specimen. He's exhausted from the day's events but there's adrenaline now, coursing through his veins and giving him a headache so painful he can't see properly.

"You and I both know if you hadn't really wanted to come back and see everyone, you wouldn't have," Naruto says flatly. "Don't even try and say it's not true. If you really were _changed_ and _evolved_ and whatever else you thought you could be going all the way to Oto, you'd've stayed there and walked right past me. You came back by choice, teme, so now you have to sit there and listen to what I've got to say."

It's true. All of it's true, and Sasuke finds the truth so repellant that he almost slugs his former best friend. Has he come so far? Building these walls and detaching himself and slicing his bonds and pursuing the success his family dictated for him, only to have it all stripped away based on a moment of weakness? Based on his selfish, pointless, _human_ desire to see his friends again?

To see _her?_

He hasn't changed at all. He's still a selfish teenage boy with no direction and no hope to ever change the way he is. He's still a boy, a fucking _kid,_ who's made nothing but bad decisions in the name of his family and his goals and nothing for himself. And now he's here out of a morbid curiosity, to see how everyone he ever loved has moved on without him. It's an excruciating experience, and it shows him what he thinks he's always known:

He's a failure. A screw-up. He's excelling in his prelaw major and despises it. He's left his friends behind and he misses them. He's broken the heart of the girl he might have married, and she's moved on.

Now what?

What next?

What is he to do?

And as usual, Uchiha Sasuke has not one idea.

"Look, teme, it's real fucking simple," Naruto says flatly. He sits back down on his bed, all the fight gone out of him. "You're right. Whatever happened with you and Sakura-chan is your business and her business and not mine so I'm not gonna say anything more about it. But you do owe ME an explanation. I'm your best friend. We've been friends for years. You owe me the truth about why you left."

Sasuke closes his eyes. Naruto's logic is airtight, and the thought is terrifying.

It's going to be a long night.

xoxoxo

There's a party Saturday night.

Sakura's looking forward to it. She's not the type of girl who parties excessively, being so busy lately, but it's a welcome distraction. She gets to pretty herself up, dress in her flashiest clothes, and drink so much she forgets who she is, let alone who will be in attendance.

So she tugs on a cream-colored dress she's recently rediscovered and pairs it with black nylons, because it's cold out, and a pair of ankle-high heeled boots. Her hair, cut off in a moment of catharsis last spring, is growing out nicely and reaches her collar bone, so she straightens it to add the illusion of length and styles her bangs to the side, rather than at her brows. She puts on makeup, coquettish pin-up makeup with a bright red lipstick, and she accents the top of her eyes and not the bottom, and she pulls on her leather jacket and looks forward to the chaos.

The boys are already there, gathered in the basement of the Union building along with much of their class, and Sakura heads down with Ino (who has Shikamaru at home babysitting) and Karin and Tenten and there's laughter and smiles and excitement and absolutely no talk of boys with black hair and black eyes with secrets behind them.

She thinks of Kiba, and his offer. She supposes they are separated now. Not together. Estranged. Whatever. He has given her time and space and he respects her issue, and she loves him for it but it's not the right love. It's not the love he deserves.

It's not love like she loves Sasuke.

_I still love you, don't I?_ she thinks.

The thought is numbing, horrifying, and she has no idea what she's supposed to do. So she does what she came here to do; she grabs a can of beer (unopened, so it hasn't been tampered with) and it opens with a satisfying hiss and she brings it to her lips and tries to fucking _forget._

xoxoxo

Sasuke finds her outside, on the patio.

Not that he was looking for her. But he's found her anyway. Which is how they started, he realizes, nostalgic again; he came to college a silly, stupid boy, and met her, and despised her at first, but grew to care for her. Grew to love her. Still does, never stopped.

But it doesn't matter. In the end, love couldn't save them.

She's swaying a little. Drunk, from what he can tell, and he remembers she could never hold her liquor. The smallest amounts had her giggling and raving and stumbling; it used to be something endearing, and maybe it still is, because he finds himself moving towards her.

This is wrong. This is stupid. He has nothing to say to her because nothing he ever says will be enough to explain and apologize for. He should turn around, find Naruto and the others back inside the Union building and pretend like she's not here.

She's alone. Kiba's not here, neither is Ino. She's by herself, her back to him, and he sees, as he draws closer, that her shoulders are bare and it's December, so it's cold. A reprimand is on his tongue when she speaks first, without even turning to face him.

"What are you doing here, Sasuke?"

Her words are slurred. She's not in her right mind. But she knows he's there without even having to look.

"Where's your coat," he deflects. His jacket is already off as he makes his way towards her and stops at her side, offering it to her. "It's freezing. Get back inside."

Sakura laughs. It's heartbreaking.

"Oh come on, Sasuke," she giggles. "I think you lost your right to boss me around, yeah?"

He ignores her and drapes the coat around her shoulders, and when she turns to face him, he sees what she's wearing.

The outfit she wore on their first date.

Without reailzing it, he's drinking her in. Devouring the sight of the cream dress and how it sheaths her flawless figure in cotton that looks as soft as it once felt beneath his hands. Her legs are concealed in black tights and she's elevated by the ankle boots she's wearing. Her pink hair, shorter than he remembers it but somehow still so _Sakura,_ blows behind her in the wind and her eyes, for as drunk as she is, pierce him like a sword. Somehow, she's even more beautiful than she was that first date. Movies. Casablanca.

Lust like he's never felt before explodes within him. His hands twitch to touch her but he remembers she's not his to touch, not anymore. And abruptly, he's angry. Angry because she's out here without a coat. Angry because he approached her in the first place. Angry because she might still be his, if he had trusted her, if she hadn't been a liar, if he hadn't been a coward.

If. Could have been. Once was.

Never will be again.

"Why are you here?" Sakura asks him.

"Hn. Crowded." He stows his hands away in his pockets and turns away from her, feigning interest in the sky.

"You know what I meant."

"Why are you wearing that dress," he snaps back, avoiding her question and allowing one of his to slip out without his permission.

"I like this dress," she retaliates waspishly. "It's none of your business why I wear it."

This is a Sakura he has not yet met, he realizes. A strong, assertive Sakura, and they are having an actual fight. Nothing like the amusing arguments they'd get into over whose baseball team was better, or which restaurant they were going to eat it. A real, honest fight, and Sasuke knows he should walk away, but he wants to meet Assertive Sakura.

He already likes her.

"You wore it before."

"Casablanca," she replies, confirming. "Not that it matters, anyway."

"It matters."

She takes a step closer to him, her heels putting the top of her head at his nose, but she looks at him like they're the exact same height, with fearless anger burning in green eyes that are darker than he remembers. Abruptly he breathes in her cinnamon scent and the cacophony from the party behind him melts away, along with his restraint.

"You think I wore this for _you?_" she sneers. "Grow up, Sasuke. I wore it 'cuz I wanted to. There's more to me than who I used to be."

"Get back inside," Sasuke grits out. "You're drunk."

"You have _no right_ to tell me what to do!" Sakura hisses, like a viper. She's as infuriating as she always was, annoying and aggravating. And so _sexy_ he almost can't believe it. "You can't just come back here and expect everything to be the same! I'm different, you bastard, I'm different than I used to be! You don't even know who I _am_ anymore!"

"You're Sakura," Sasuke growls. "You're Sakura and you're the same in all the ways that matter and different in a thousand ways more. And you're still. So fucking. _Annoying!"_

She shoves him. It has almost no effect because she's drunk. But he knows he's affecting her, and good. Fucking great, because she's affecting him.

"You left!" Sakura screams, but it's raspy and hoarse, since she's so cold. His jacket drowns her tiny frame and makes her look more like a petulant child than an angry goddess, which he guesses is what she's trying for. "You left me and you left us and now you're back and _why?_"

It's not right, what he does next. But Sasuke loves Sakura all wrong.

He grabs her by the collar of his jacket and he pulls her closer and he smashes his mouth against hers.

xoxoxo

Sakura's drunk, but not drunk enough to have no grasp on what's happening.

He's here, Sasuke. Sasuke's here and he's yelling at her and then he's kissing her and what's more is, she's kissing him back. And it's all so _wrong._ It's happening outside, in mid-December, with the wind howling and a rager of a party roaring behind them in the Union building. And she's sort-of seeing Kiba and he's supposed to be beyond caring but he _isn't._

_Or else why would he be kissing me?_

She can't breathe or think. She knows it's wrong. There isn't anything sweet or romantic about this moment, it's borne of frustration, of anger. They're punishing each other, she realizes, and punishing themselves. And it's raw and violent and almost animalistic, nothing like they've ever done before, but why does it feel like she's coming back to life?

Abruptly, the moment's over. Sasuke's hands, hot and strong, snap back from her waist and hair like she's caught fire and he turns his back on her, pacing back and forth.

"Forget this," he says darkly. "Forget it happened, Sakura."

It sounds like rejection, but Sakura knows it's retreat.

Sasuke, for all his bravery and strength and capability, is vulnerable. And he does not tolerate weakness, least of all in himself, so he avoids situations that he can't control. Like this one. Like this roiling energy between them that's existed since they met, that's warped and changed as they've changed, and now it's evolved into something neither can understand or predict.

But Sakura isn't the coward she used to be, and she isn't going to shy away from this. Not when Sasuke makes her feel so much and when he's so close.

Maybe it's the beer.

Whatever it is, she reaches out and grabs the back of his shirt, her fingers tight, and she pulls him towards her. He's stiff but he doesn't resist as she wraps her around his chest from behind, and she stands on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.

"Let's get out of here."

He inhales sharply. She feels his muscles tense, coiled like he's about to spring, and she knows he's fighting this...whatever this is...that's brewing between them. They've been in the same area for one night, exchanged nothing more than wary glances and awkward conversation and a nasty blowout, but the storm isn't coming anymore. It's already here.

And they're both about to get caught in the rain.

"It's a bad idea," Sasuke growls back, and he's trembling beneath her hands. "We know what'll happen."

It's confirmation, that his thoughts are in the same arena as hers. That he wants her like she wants him, this wild connection. And it does not scare her off. Where Sasuke is intimidated, she is empowered. Even if she is terrified, she is not too terrified to run.

And she knows what's about to happen is inevitable.

She slides her hands down his chest, rememorizing the contours of his muscled physique after so many months of only dreaming of it. He shudders violently, and when she dips her hands beneath the waistband of his jeans, fingers dragging across his hipbone and following the descent of his V, he groans in anger and surrender.

"Come on, Sasuke," Sakura murmurs. "Here isn't the place."

"You're with Kiba," he grinds out, but he doesn't push her away. He's hard, she can tell, as aroused as she is with as little restraint left.

"Not anymore."

And as she says it, she knows it's true. What was missing with Kiba was the spark that burns between her and Sasuke. Even if Kiba is sweet and charming and handsome and funny and fun, even if Sasuke broke her heart and will break it tomorrow as sure as the sun will rise, Sakura knows the reason she can't be with Kiba any longer. It's wrong to hold him back to wait for something that won't happen as long as Sasuke owns her heart.

It hurts but it's a heartache she won't handle until the morning, when this mistake has been made and all that's left to do is recover.

Sasuke whips around to face her, her hands flying out of his jeans, and his grip is like stone around her wrists. There's a fire in his eyes she's never seen before, and she's as frightened as she is exhilarated. Sasuke's always been good at that: scaring her and exciting her all at once.

"Sakura," he growls, and her name is electrifying on his lips, dark and full of sinful promise. "Are you sure. Because I can't hold back."

And it's wrong, so wrong, so hideously wrong. There's so much unsaid between them; their problems have not gone away, nothing's solved. He still left her and she still doubts him. They are still Sasuke and Sakura, in over their heads, neither one of them trusting each other or themselves, and they're angry and frustrated and scared and-

And Sakura's never been more sure in her life.

She makes eye contact and it says _I'msureI'msurei'mscaredandsureandImissedyou_ and she hopes there will be time to fix what's broken between them.

"I'm sure."

Then all she knows is Sasuke's lips and his hands and the sound of his heart racing along with her own. And they don't trust each other and they don't forgive each other and they don't forgive themselves.

But tonight, they don't need forgiveness.

No one sees them make their way quickly, purposefully back to Hokage Hall, back up the stairs because the elevator can't move fast enough. No one sees Sakura fumble with her room key while Sasuke's lips are on her throat, his hands traveling the familiar contours of the cream-colored dress he still remembers. No one sees them disappear behind her door.

Sakura knows this is wrong. Out of order and nothing's resolved and he lives a world away and they don't know each other anymore. But when he breathes her name in her ear as he pushes her down onto the mattress, when he kisses her neck because he remembers that's where she likes to be kissed, when he tears her dress off and his shirt follows...

She knows he's her favorite mistake.

xoxoxo

**note..** I have the absolute biggest weakness for fucked-up love stories. Forbidden romance and what have you. They're reconnecting sexually but we all know there's more to it than that, right? Right. Excited to tell you what I have up my sleeves for our favorite fictitious couple. :)

Hope you're having a great week, everyone! (Are there any boys reading this?) Love youuuu

xoxox Dr. Daisy


	21. Clash

Sasuke, for all his exhaustion, can't sleep. Won't. Doesn't want to.

Whatever.

She's lying in his arms, breathing peacefully, lost in slumber. There's a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead, her bangs damp, but her skin is cool, and she is smiling. And he can't take his eyes off of her.

_How could I leave you?_ he thinks, and it isn't the first time he's hated himself, but it feels like it might be the strongest. She's innocent and beautiful and now they've slept together again and Sasuke wonders what his next move will be.

He was powerless against her outside that fucking party. She stripped him of his defenses with little more than a sideways glance; he remembers the feel of her arms around him, the breathy invitation whispered in his ear, the smoldering kiss she'd given him that nearly brought him to his knees. He'd put up an almost embarrassingly weak defense against her.

She's just as he remembers her in some ways, and unrecognizable in a million ways. There is no fragility in her eyes anymore; she does not implore him to be gentle with her, because she can handle herself. Perhaps, he muses, it was his leaving that enabled her to become the independent person she is now. Perhaps, if he had never left, she would have stayed the same: sweet and lovely and weak. The pretty one, the smart one, the kind one, but never the strong one.

Now she's all of those things and a million things more.

_She didn't need me,_ he thinks, and he doesn't know if he's happy about that or not. Of course he is glad that, far from breaking down after his betrayal, Sakura learned to take care of herself and bloomed and flowered and grew. But a part of him, a selfish part, almost longs for the Sakura who needed him.

What place could he have in her life now? Now that she is happy on her own?

Is there room for him anymore?

Abruptly, he is angry. _I'm getting ahead of myself,_ he realizes. A fatalist as always, and even now, cradling the girl he neverstoppedloving in his arms, Sasuke can't help but find the dark side of things. _I broke her heart. She might hate me now, and she should. I didn't trust her._

_I still don't._

It's an uncomfortable truth, but it's the truth, and above all things, Sasuke is honest, he believes. Brutally so. Even if the truth is the most repellant thing in the world.

But how _can_ he trust her?

Sakura spent the majority of their relationship trying to conceal her pain from him, and she did so through lies and half-truths and empty smiles that concealed nothing and everything. She kept so many secrets about herself that Sasuke had no choice but to doubt her in almost everything. Even now, he feels justified in how he views her.

Involuntarily, his eyes drop to the scar on her neck, which is fading, but he can still make it out because he knows what to look for. And he doesn't know how she received that scar because Sakura never told him.

And he doesn't know about her family, because Sakura never told him.

And he doesn't know about a thousand things she's never said. Even now, a year later, she's a mystery to him, even in her bra and panties and letting him hold her as she sleeps, he's cradling a stranger.

His grip tightens marginally, and Sakura shifts in his arms. Her eyes open, and he watches as she blinks twice, sighs, looks around. This is just as he remembers it; she's always slow to wake, slow to adjust to what's going on around her. He doesn't say anything, instead lets her look up at him...he watches as her eyes grow wide when she makes out who he is. His name tumbles from her lips almost in confusion.

"S-Sasuke?"

Like she can't believe it's him, and it breaks his heart a little, because he can't believe it's him either.

He doesn't answer. He holds her gaze with his eyes, watches as stormy green paints his face like she's trying to memorize every inch of him before he disappears. Bizarrely, he's never felt more connected to her than at this moment. Not even when he moved inside her, when she panted his name like a prayer...here, right now, in the early morning darkness, Sasuke feels like he's getting to know Sakura for real.

But one thing hasn't changed about her, he realizes.

Sakura restores her shields the very second he feels like he might be willing to try to take them down.

She sits up abruptly, shattering the tenuous connection between them, and rubs her eyes sleepily. "What time is it?" she asks tiredly.

He knows it's 3:48, and he could tell her that, but he's angry now. Angry because she's trying to downplay the significance of this moment, angry because she's shielding herself away from him again, angry because he loves her but nothing's changed, at least not the things that needed to.

So Sasuke doesn't answer, and Sakura sighs and tucks her hair behind her ear. It's a nervous gesture, one he recognizes from way-back-when, something she does when she doesn't know what to do. It should be comforting, seeing a sign from the Old Sakura, but instead it makes his stomach feel sour, because he doesn't know what to do either.

"You regret it, don't you."

Sakura's voice is wistful, almost resigned, and she isn't looking at him.

"I have no regrets," Sasuke replies automatically, but it's a lie, and he's a liar just like she is. He has nothing _but_ regrets, chief among them taking a step away from this girl one snowy December day, then another step and another till he found himself in Oto and alone.

It's the _wrong_ thing to say, and Sakura is not reassured by his words, she is infuriated by them. She jumps out of bed like it's caught fire and, her back to him, says icily, "I think you should leave."

But Sasuke's not _going_ to leave, because Sasuke's angry and so is she and they are _right back where they started._ He gets out of bed, too, but makes no move to go to the door, because now he and Sakura are fighting and he's going to keep her talking.

"No," he says flatly.

She whirls around, and the vengeful goddess look she was going for before outside the Union is much, much more convincing when she's sober. She's wearing nothing but a lacy bra and lacy panties and accusation, and Sasuke, as angry as he is with her, is also equally attracted to her.

That's always been the problem with Sakura, he muses.

xoxoxo

He's a bastard, she realizes.

An asshole on top of it.

A _traitor_ and a _heartbreaker_ and a _fool._

And she's slept with him, knowing all that, and these, she supposes, are the consequences: he's shirtless and she's in her underwear and everything unsaid between them threatens to emerge. There's a stormcloud gathering in the early morning darkness, and she wonders if any of her floormates can feel this unnatural shift in the atmosphere, because she can.

It feels like lightning.

"I said _leave,_" she snaps, but it's about the last thing she wants him to do. "You've always been really good at that, haven't you?"

The words are out before she can stop. Tiredness and sobriety make for a slippery tongue, it seems, and now that she's said it, now that she's revealed her bitterness and her hurt, there's no taking it back.

Sasuke bristles. His eyes narrow. He's angry, and good, because she's angry, too.

"Shut up, Sakura," he snaps.

"Get _out,_ asshole! I'm not gonna let you do this shit to me again!"

"Calm down. You're being ridiculous."

It's like he knows everything he's not supposed to say to a furious girl, and he's saying all of it anyway. His words are like gasoline on the fire of her rage.

"Of course I am!" she yells. "Stupid, emotional, _ridiculous_ Sakura, blowing everything out of proportion again, right? Fuck _you,_ Sasuke, you fucking asshole! You just fucking leave, you don't even say why, you don't even _tell me_ you're breaking up with me...you just leave in the middle of the night like a fucking ghost, and now you're back, and you sleep with me again, and _nothing's changed_!"

"You're damn fucking right, nothing's changed!" Sasuke snaps back, and he's raising his voice now, and Sakura is shocked; Sasuke almost _never_ shouts. "You're still the same shady fucking liar you were when I left!"

"_I'M SHADY?"_ she screams. And it's four in the morning and someone's bound to hear them but she does. not. care. "I'M SHADY? _You're the one who left! You didn't even say goodbye!_"

"You're bitter," he says coldly. His voice is like stone, and she resents his height, because he's towering over her as they fight. "But it doesn't change anything. I didn't trust you and I still don't and this whole fucking _night_ was a mistake."

"Thought you said you had no regrets," Sakura sneers, and she can tell by the look on his face that he isn't used to this shrewish retaliation. "You're still the same _coward_ you were back then. And you say I'm a liar but everything you _tell_ yourself is a lie. You believe the worst in people and you're blind to the best in them and fuck _you_ if you're gonna drag me down with you!"

Sasuke takes a menacing step closer to her, and she gets the feeling that if she were a guy, Sasuke might have punched her. But he contents himself with slamming his hands on the wall behind her and leaning in so they're nose to nose.

"What did you just say," he demands, his voice very, very soft and very, very dangerous.

"You're a coward," she repeats viciously. She's afraid of the storm between them, but she isn't afraid of Sasuke, and her voice is strong. "You've always been a coward. Too afraid to chase your own dreams or figure out what they even are. Too afraid to face yourself in the fucking mirror. Too afraid to look at _us_ and take _any _measure of responsibility over what happened!"

"You know _nothing,"_ he hisses. "You know nothing about what happened. You know nothing about me."

"And that's the problem isn't it?" she whispers. "Because all this time, you tell me I'm shady for keeping my secrets, and you think I'm a liar and you don't trust me. But tell me this, _Sasuke._

"When did you ever let _your_ guard down to me?"

xoxoxo

There's a ringing silence after that. Sasuke isn't breathing and neither is she. The hallways are quiet, deserted, and for all their arguing, no one seems to notice what's going on in Room 432. Which is amazing, because Sasuke feels like he's been turned inside out, laid bare for the world to examine.

He hates her. He hates her because she's _right._

He doesn't trust her because she won't tell him all her secrets. But is that fair of him to expect, when Sakura knows absolutely nothing of his own?

_It's for her own good, not telling her,_ he thinks self-righteously. _I was right not to tell her. I was right to keep it all hidden away. I was right._

The sentiment does not feel as airtight as it used to. Regardless of his reasons, his silence is pushing her away.

He is as much to blame for the lack of trust between them as she is.

Sasuke backs away from the wall, turns away from her. He can't look into accusing green eyes another minute, because Sakura is _right._

He is no crusader for truth, no lone figure of honesty in a world full of deceit. There is nothing noble or honest about him. He is a liar, and what's more, is he can lie to himself and believe what he says.

He's a coward.

For all his strength, his success, his skill on the baseball diamond, the soccer pitch, the classroom, for all his popularity and good looks and impressive lineage, Uchiha Sasuke is a frightened little boy who's very, very good at lying.

"You can expect the truth about me when you're willing to give me the same," Sakura murmurs from behind him. Her voice is cold but cracking, like she's trying to put up a front but it's crumbling. "But until then, you have _no right_ to call me a liar."

Sasuke finds his T-shirt and tugs it on. He needs to leave. He can't be in this room anymore, in this tiny room full of memories of her. Her scent pervades his senses and she's too beautiful to look at sometimes, and he's ashamed of everything he's ever done or said to her because _he's_ a liar just like she is: the only difference is, she's brave enough to admit it.

"I wasn't open with you," Sakura continues. "I should have told you about my past, I know that. I would have eventually, I know that, too. But we didn't trust each other. And that's what killed us."

It'll kill them again, Sasuke knows.

"Can you trust me now?" Sakura asks him, and he is looking for his shoes when she stops him, her hand on his arm, her eyes probing and omniscient. She won't let him look away and she won't let him walk away. "Can you tell me the truth about you? And are you ready to hear the truth about me?"

Is he?

Sasuke searches what remains of his heart. Does he have the strength to admit his weakness? Can he look into the eyes of the most amazing girl in the world, and confess to her what a rotten, confused, hopeless sad sack he really is? Can he confess to her all the murky secrets of his miserable past, things he has not let himself think about in years?

Can he handle hearing the darkness of Sakura?

He isn't sure. He doesn't know.

"Sasuke," she breathes. "Is there anything between us even worth saving?"

He wants to tell her she's worth everything. He wants to tell her how he missed her more than anything after he left, how he still misses her. He wants to tell her she's the most beautiful thing alive, and that he never stopped loving her, and that he's an asshole and a liar and a coward and he's _sorry._

So he opens his mouth but there's a knock at the door, frantic and urgent.

Sakura meets his eyes almost despairingly before she grabs her fluffy pink bathrobe, puts it on, and answers it to find Naruto, looking concerned and sleep-tousled standing in the threshold.

"Sakura-chan, you okay?" he asks worriedly. "I heard you shouting, and..."

Naruto sees Sasuke. His blue eyes search his face and Sasuke wonders what his idiot best friend (maybe) sees when he looks at him. The scene is incriminating, to be sure; both of them are flushed and breathing heavily and in various states of undress. There is no mistaking what happened in Room 432.

As for what was _about_ to happen...

Sasuke is sure the moment is gone, spoiled. Naruto's interruption condemned their fragile expedition into the darkness of each other's hearts. Sentenced it to death, even.

Sasuke knows tonight, he will not scale the wall to Sakura's heart, and she won't slide under the fence of his.

"I'm fine," Sakura says cheerfully. In her sunny smile, she denies the implications of what is happening. But her eyes tell a different story. "Sorry, must've had the TV too loud."

A weak, pathetic excuse for such a seasoned liar.

Naruto senses, though, that something is amiss, something is changing in the room. Sasuke knows that his best friend (sometimes) is annoyingly wise and incredibly astute. Can he somehow perceive the gravity of the scene he walked into? Standing on the precipice of total honesty with Haruno Sakura, for the first time in his life, Sasuke wonders if Naruto knows what was about to happen.

"Go back to bed, Naruto, I won't keep you up," Sakura says reassuringly.

"Okay." Naruto speaks to Sakura, but his gaze is on Sasuke. "Just let me know if you need anything."

He's gone, and it's just Sasuke and Sakura, but the moment is stolen away from them. Sakura turns to him and murmurs, "You should go with him."

"Sakura..."

"It's fine." She sounds exhausted. "I'm just tired. Okay? Go with him. We can talk about this some other time."

He can't push her. Even diamond-spine, new Sakura has her limits, and he can tell that he's pushed her to them. He's at his own breaking point and isn't quite sure he's ready to break.

He finishes dressing in silence. And when he leaves, he says nothing, and neither does she. The door shuts behind him and Sakura's a world away.

xoxoxo

It's stupid, but she can't be in this room another moment.

Sasuke's scent is on her sheets, her pillows. His presence lingers like a phantom, and Sakura's torn between bone-deep exhaustion and electric adrenaline. She wants to sleep and sprint all at the same time, and she can'tcan'tcan't stay here.

It's stupid. It's late and it's cold and there's ice on the streets, and Sakura knows better than anybody the dangers of a girl out on the streets all alone in the middle of the night. But she can't bring herself to care, because nothing is worse at this moment than remaining static in the room where Everything Is Changing.

Sweatpants and flipflops and the nearest coat she can find are not the wisest choices for a night like this. She's freezing as she runs, as the sweat in her hair turns cold, almost icy, as her frozen tears trace frigid lines down her face. She's breathing too hard, in through her mouth and out through her mouth and that's the wrong way to run, as anyone with a lick of sense knows. She pumps her legs and arms and her destination is the little apartment five blocks from Konoha's campus, with the dark windows because the fragile little family inside is sleeping.

Sakura makes it to the front step and lets herself in with the spare key and she sobs, "Ino!"

In the span of a moment, her best friend emerges from her bedroom, sleep-tousled but remarkably alert for the late hour. She takes one look at Sakura and has her in a hug in the span of a moment.

"It's Sasuke," Ino says, but it isn't a question, it's a confirmation. Because Ino is Sakura's bestbest friend and best friends know things right away, without needing words. It's all she can do to nod in Ino's arms, and for a long time, no words are spoken. They stand in the kitchenette hugging each other like a lifeline, while Shikamaru and Hana-chan continue to sleep, and so does the rest of the world while Sakura's heart throbs and aches and races.

It could be hours have gone by when Sakura's phone, tucked into her coat pocket, buzzes, and she takes it out and glances at the screen.

It's a one-word text from a phone number she deleted a year ago, but remembers anyway.

"Tomorrow."

xoxoxo

**note..** Happy Saturday! :)


	22. Calm

Sakura dozes off on the sofa, and is woken to the sound of Hana's cries.

It's still early, so Sakura fetches her from her room so Shikamaru and Ino can sleep a little longer; Ino stayed up with her for over an hour in the wee morning hours, proving she's the best friend Sakura needs, so changing and feeding the baby seems a shallow way of repaying her.

Hana giggles when Sakura enters the room. She _loves_ being the little one's favorite, even if it annoys Ino to no end, and she reaches into the crib cooing and praising and picks up the baby and carries her to the changing table.

"Good morning, sunshine," she croons, while Hana's curls catch the sunlight and she laughs shrilly. A quick diaper change later, and Sakura carries her quietly to the kitchen for a bottle.

It's quiet in the little apartment. Shikamaru and Ino continue to sleep, and Hana drinks hungrily from her bottle, and Sakura is left alone with her thoughts and alone with this baby. It sparks an odd question.

Does she see herself as a mother? Is that written in the stars for her?

Someday, she thinks. Someday she would quite like a baby of her own, a baby like Hana: pretty and laughing and so, so _innocent._ Years later, when she is established as a successful doctor and well-adjusted and not quite as haunted by the murkiness of her past, maybe that's a possibility.

She envies her sweet little goddaughter, as much as she loves her.

She looks into big blue eyes and wisheshopeslongsfor the complete _innocence_ a baby has. They are not liars because they have no need to lie. They are not sinners. They have no regrets. The world is an adventure to them, one that isn't so scary because they have Mama and Daddy and sometimes a godmother like her and a godfather like Chouji and all their friends who lovelovelove Hana to pieces. To a baby, there is no safer place than locked in a mother's embrace.

Sakura never had that.

"Maybe we can switch places," she whispers conspiratorially to Hana, who laughs like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard, this four-month-old sausage. "And I can lay around for a few months while everyone adores me, and you can figure a way out of this mess I made for myself, huh?"

She thinks of Sasuke. It's impossible not to, now that he's back, and now that they've fucked and fucked up. And she thinks of how he broke her heart, and how he called her a liar without realizing he was one, too. And how he expected all the secrets she's stored away for years without giving _anything_ back.

And she thinks of how she still loves him, and how she thought that once-upon-a-time, that was enough. As long as she loved him, that was enough.

_It's not enough,_ she thinks with a heavy sigh. _Love isn't enough. There's also trust. Acceptance. Knowing each other inside and out and sticking around even through the dark parts. Sasuke didn't stay. I couldn't stop him. What makes this time so different?_

_Won't it just end like before?_

Sakura wonders what she expects from Sasuke now. He has a different life. Two semesters under his belt at Oto, a place which feels farther away than it actually is. This could be nothing more than a one-night stand with an old flame, a release of pent-up aggression marginally more satisfying than smoking a J. Who says he's trying to fix what broke between them?

There's anxiety, then. It creeps up around her heart and she battles it back with everything inside her, but it's unfamiliar territory lately. Lately, Sakura's had her head on straight. She's doing well, very well actually, as a student and a friend and a person, so well that she hasn't had time to dwell on the things that one gave her cause for fear.

But Sasuke.

Even his _name_ intimidates her. Intimidating because it means so much, has so many different definitions, but she can't even place what he _is_ to her.

Besides, of course, _everything,_ but she won't tell him that. Not yet. Not till she has some solid ground to stand on. For _once,_ damn it, when it comes to him.

Hana touches her hand to Sakura's cheek and interrupts her frustrated train of thought. Sakura blinks and turns her attention back to the baby, who's staring hard, almost unsettlingly focused, on her godmother's eyes. She's inquisitive, curious.

And Sakura loves her goddaughter very very much, so she gives her the soundest piece of advice in the history of humanity, passed down from woman to woman and ignored by _every_ woman, but Sakura loves Hana, so she tries:

"Never, ever, ever fall in love, pretty girl. Never ever."

xoxoxo

Sasuke does not sleep that night.

Naruto does not let him.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" seems to be the only thing the dobe is capable of saying, and at increasingly loud volumes, too. Sasuke grits his teeth and says nothing, mainly because he doesn't really have an answer.

_I'm still in love with the girl I walked away from, and I couldn't stop myself from plowing her even though she was drunk and hates me,_ is the truth, but Sasuke knows better than to voice it aloud.

He's already the villain in this situation.

Naruto is seething mad. Raging pissed. Sasuke hasn't seen him this mad since freshman year of high school, when he made the junior varsity football squad, while Sasuke was made a starter at the varsity level.

"I can't believe how stupid you are!" Naruto scolds.

"Shut up, dobe." He's annoyed at everything and can't he just shut his goddamn eyes for two minutes?

Naruto hurls a nearby sneaker at his best friend's head. Sasuke avoids it narrowly and gives Naruto a look that promises agony, but Naruto's quicker.

"You slept with Sakura-chan!"

"Tch. No shit, you _amoeba._"

"You can't just go around sleeping with Sakura-chan! She ain't the kind of girl you do that to!"

Abruptly, irrationally, Sasuke's angry. Irate, actually, and he knows it's baseless and unfounded, because he has _no right_ to be mad about this, but the jealousy and insecurity rising quickly in his chest don't allow him one second of clarity before he bites out, "The hell she's not...she was with Kiba, wasn't she?"

Naruto's eyes widen and his jaw drops like it's the single most blasphemous thing in the world to cast aspersions on Sakura's fidelity, and maybe it is, but Sasuke can't hold back anymore.

"SAKURA-CHAN IS NOT A SLUT! YOU CAN'T GET MAD THAT SHE WAS WITH SOMEONE ELSE!"

"With someone else while she let me fuck her," sneers Sasuke. He's angry, angry because Sakura's too good for him yet again and so he needs to cut her down, demonize her a little bit.

Bring her down to his level.

Even if it's entirely unfounded, even if she _told him_ she was done with Kiba, single, free game. Because Sasuke's frustrated and confused and why should he be the only bad guy in this?

"She's a fucking slut. A lying, shady slut."

Then there is Naruto's fist in his face, a roaring in his ears, and he drops to the floor of the dorm room like a stone.

xoxoxo

When he wakes, he isn't angry at Naruto for punching his lights out. His head hurts, his jaw _throbs,_ but he was out of line, and he respects Naruto's need for revenge. Vengeance has always been an easy concept for Sasuke to grasp, and he won't deny someone their revenge when it's so aptly deserved.

He'd called Sakura a slut. Unforgivable. Because Sasuke may not know New Sakura all that well, but he knows her in all the ways that matter. And 'slut' is the last thing she is, was, will be.

It harkens back to the night before he left Konoha. Seeing the article on pregnancy on her laptop, suspecting the worst. Envisioning another man's hands on her body. He has no claim on her anymore but the thought still makes him so angry he's almost feral.

And it boils down to _trust._ Like everything else does, when it comes to them. Trust is the only thing that can save them, as it was the only thing that could break them down.

He rubs the back of his head, which he'd hit on the way down, and sits up and sees Naruto glaring at him from his seat on the desk chair.

"Maybe that knocked some sense into you," he snaps. "Sakura-chan ain't a slut. But she ain't your girlfriend neither and that's _your fault._ You gotta talk to her, teme. _Without_ banging her. Really talk to her."

"I know," Sasuke mumbles, trying for irritated but coming off contrite. "We're talking. Today."

The text message he'd sent, promising (threatening) that it would happen today. Her lack of response.

"Good," Naruto says firmly, nodding. "Then you can tell her you love her and that she's great and that you're _sorry_ for being such a dick. And then you can get your shit transferred back to Konoha where you belong, and-"

"I am _not_ transferring back to Konoha," Sasuke says coldly. "Get it out of your head, dobe."

Naruto sighs and rolls his eyes.

"And everyone says _I'm_ the stupid one," he mutters.

Nothing more is said; sunlight streams through the blinds as a wild night bleeds into a tense, _important_ morning.

Today.

God help him.

xoxoxo

The funny thing is, Sakura muses, as she sits alone at a table in the dining hall with her cereal and too-burnt toast and orange juice she wishes had vodka in it sprawled in front of her, it feels like a normal Sunday.

Sundays are for studying, which means she needs to carbo-load before heading back to her room, locking herself inside, and putting her nose to the grindstone. It's cold outside so she's in her warmest, laziest clothes: sweats and her hair's in a ponytail and her bangs are in her eyes and there's no makeup either.

A normal Sunday. Finals are coming up. Normal.

What _isn't_ normal is the conversation she's waiting to have. One she knows she ain't ready for, but is brimming with impatience and nervousness for all the same. She's not prepared but it's long overdue and what exactly does she think will come out of this?

What good could be found here, getting Sasuke to spill his secrets, and telling him hers in return?

Will simply knowing what he's been hiding behind dark eyes and cold icy words be enough to redeem him? Will telling him about Scary Daddy and Mean Mommy and dancing and _back then_ be enough to save what she thinks can't be saved?

Is honesty their salvation, or is it their death knell?

She takes a bite of Cheerios and throws away her trash and heads outside for her first cigarette in months and muses that it feels like a normal day.

Except that it isn't. And likely, after today, after this, she won't even remember what normal is.

xoxoxo

He sees her outside and she looks so alike the girl he left and so unlike her all at once that he almost doesn't approach her.

There's a cigarette between her fingers. Her hands are shaking a little bit. She looks stressed.

He's never seen her smoke before. He's found, of course, empty packs in her trash can back when they were dating, and smelled nicotine on her fingers if she hadn't washed her hands before seeing him. But besides that, she's never allowed him to see her indulge in her Bad Habit.

Seeing it now, is like finding a piece of the puzzle he wasn't able to complete. It's a Bad Thing about Sakura, one of her Bad Habits, and smoking gives you cancer and she's gonna be a _doctor_ for Chrissake so it's even worse, and-

And it's something she does. And it's something he accepts, because that's what he needs to do, he realizes. He needs to hear what Bad Things she has to tell him and accept that it's a part of her and move on. Because isn't that what he wants (desperately) from her?

She's sitting on the bench. K-Quad.

It's a cliche place for their dramatic...reunion? No, they've reunited. Remembering the way she'd almost screamed his name the night before, he knows they've passed reunited.

Reconciled?

Maybe. Closer, anyway.

He approaches her slowly, calmly, his hands in his pockets. He watches as she lifts a gloved hand to her mouth, inhales. He watches as she nervously taps her free fingers on her knee before blowing out the smoke in a ring that suggests she knows what she's doing.

It's attractive, weirdly. Seeing this innocent girl and knowing she isn't so innocent, not when he knows she's sexual and has a tattoo and no compunctions about weed and she smokes cigarettes sometimes, too. Sakura's something of a bad girl, even, complete with the leather jacket and everything.

A bad girl with a good heart and a labcoat because she's going to fix people, once she fixes herself.

And Sasuke _loves_ her, and it isn't enough.

Maybe this will be, though. Maybe honesty will be enough. Maybe it won't.

So he moves closer to the bad girl in the leather jacket who couldn't be more of a sweetheart, and takes a seat beside her on the bench. The wind whistles and he sees out of the corner of his eye how Sakura's pink hair, shorter than he remembers it, blows back and forth, and they don't say anything for awhile, before Sakura speaks first.

(_and why shouldn't she she's always been brave and a lot braver than you, you coward)_

"This scar," she says, stubbing out her cigarette and running a gloved hand over her neck, "I gave it to myself."

And Sasuke knows he's about to hear about the darkness of Sakura.

And he isn't afraid.

Because whatever horrible things she's about to divulge to him, in the shade and seclusion of this little bench in the dead of winter, it won't be as awful as the things he knows he must tell her.

If he has the strength. Because he isn't like Sakura.

He's never been the strong one.

"Why," he asks softly.

And Sakura begins to talk.

xoxoxo

**note..** Heyyyy :)

My wedding is Saturday. Then it's off to Disney World for the week with my gorgeous husband (aghaghagh husband holy hell) and no updates then, I'm afraid. So I'll try and hook y'all up till then yafeelme. HOLLAAAA.

Next chapter: Sasuke's shit revealed. (About time, too, dang) Love you, angelfarts! :)


	23. Stasis

Sakura remembers what the knife felt like, but mostly she remembers the desperation that had her reaching for it in the first place. Like she didn't have control over her limbs or decisions anymore; like it was happening because it needed to, not that she was doing it to herself. That the only way out of her shambles of a life was through the serrated edge of the kitchen knife, gleaming eerily bright in the bathroom light.

It's hard to talk about. The only person who knows is Shizune, her counselor. And Tsunade, of course; her first day of classes, the shrewd woman took one look at the scar and after class, demanded the story. And Tsunade isn't the kind of woman you say no to.

"You tried to kill yourself," Sasuke murmurs beside her. He's quiet as he speaks and he doesn't look at her, but she sees the way his knuckles bleach, the only indication he gives her that he hears what she's saying. "Why."

"I don't...I don't think I thought it through," Sakura replies. She frowns, contemplative. "I don't think...when I did it...that I thought about it as being suicide. I just wanted it to...to stop, you know?"

"Wanted what to stop," he prompts her.

"Things were bad at home. Really bad. So I just..."

Sasuke turns to face her, and his eyes probe hers and let her know without him having to say it that that's not a satisfactory explanation. She catches herself and tries again.

"My dad hit me." She drops his gaze because she's ashamed and embarrassed and this is still _so hard_ to discuss. "A lot. For a long time. Any reason he could find. He was a big drinker, still is, I guess...he was away a lot on business. I liked those times best. Then it was just...me and Mother. But even that wasn't...that was bad, too."

Sasuke's quiet as he waits for her to collect her thoughts and continue. She looks up at the clouds overhead, darker than they should be for the mid-morning hour, and she thinks it looks like it might snow. And wouldn't that be fitting, here where everything ended a year before, with the snow falling around them?

"This is hard for me," Sakura admits softly. "Talking about all this. I tried so hard to put it behind me, but...I can't expect to keep 17 years of my life a secret. And there's more to me than who I am now...it's important that you, at least, get to know who I _was._"

"Your dad hit you." Sasuke's tone betrays no emotion, but when she looks at him, she sees _something_ in his eyes, something that she doesn't think she's ever seen before in Uchiha Sasuke, and she doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing. "And your mom...?"

"My counselor...Shizune...said it was 'emotional abuse.' I had a really, really awful self-image back then because of her, and-"

"You still do," scoffs Sasuke impatiently, but it isn't mean-spirited. Sakura recalls his insistence that she was beautiful at every turn, and still doubts him. "At least now I know where it all stems from."

"Well. Bottom line is I left and I am _never_ going back."

"What about your knee. You said you quit ballet because you hurt your knee."

"Oh." Sakura is surprised he remembers that, and nervously plays with the zipper of her jacket. "I had to. My dad came home wasted one night, and when he took a swing at me, I was standing at the top of the basement stairs." She recalls the way she'd fallen, landing hard on her knee, twisting it ruthlessly. She recalls lying to the doctor, saying it was an accident. She recalls that same doctor telling her that she'd torn some ligaments and would be unable to become a professional dancer as a result.

She recalls being completely unable to shed a tear for her situation. Dreams of dancing onstage, lights on her and nothing but freedom and the possibility to be the best, ripped away from her, all of it left her numb. She can still dance, she knows; she dances whenever she can, whenever the night is too long or the day is too short and she needs to move.

But it isn't the same. And part of her still mourns the loss of what never was, what could have been.

She's doing well, she thinks, in this scary conversation. She's admitting things she's kept hidden from Sasuke, things he should have known from the beginning. But it's scary and she's stressed, and without knowing it, she's reaching into her pocket without knowing what she's looking for, but finds a cigarette and decides that must be it.

_Where's my fucking lighter?_ she thinks, looking around for it, the lighter that makes green fire, but she can't find where she tossed it in her purse. To her surprise, though, there is a quick strike of flint and Sasuke's holding out his lighter for her, the flame orange on the outsides and blue on the inside.

"Thanks," Sakura says with a shaky smile, and she inhales on the cigarette to get it started and watches as it catches fire. The smoke is familiar, the scent is comforting, and it's warm in her cold fingers and she feels a little of the stress melt away as the smoke rises higher.

So here she is with Sasuke. Telling him all the shadiness of her past. Smoking in front of him like it's not one of her Bad Habits.

This isn't where she thought she would be, if you'd asked her last week.

But here she is and maybemaybemaybe they're getting somewhere. Even if it's awkward airing her dirty laundry to him, even if the words come out wrong and in the wrong order and everything sounds strange. Once it's out there, she feels better, bit by bit, little by little. Like she's lightening a burden she's carried for so long, she's forgotten it's there until it isn't.

Sasuke's looking at her. There isn't judgment in his eyes, only patience and curiosity. Maybe a little guilt, and she thinks she knows why: she's telling him everything and he's silent as stars. He's painfully handsome framed against a chilly backdrop, his hair wind-tousled and his pale cheeks flushed with cold. He regards her seriously because he's always serious (unless he's got vodka in his blood and the Yankees are winning) and speaks again, his voice like sex and velvet.

"Panic attacks."

Two words. A question. He's asking about That Night.

Sakura isn't used to talking about That Night. It's been awhile since she's had to say anything about it. To date, Sasuke knows, having inferred it from her unspoken explanation before they started dating a year ago. Her counselor, Shizune, knows. Tsunade, her teacher, she knows too, along with her best friend Ino and Kiba, the boy-she-could-have-loved-maybe. And that's it.

Each time was hard to handle in its own way.

But this is about honesty, this discussion that's hard-but-getting-easier. This is about coming clean, revealing all the dark and ugly parts about her so he doesn't have to guess. It's the only thing that can save them, this bare honesty, and it could kill them just as easily, but it's a chance Sakura is now brave enough to take.

"I was at a party," she breathes, passing over the half-smoked cigarette to Sasuke, who, to her surprise, inhales deeply, expertly on it as well and holds it in the corner of his mouth while she talks. "I didn't know many people there. I got really wasted...roofies, I found out later. It...it was on the floor. In the bathroom." It hurts to repeat it, but she plows on. "I don't know who it was."

"You never found him?" Sasuke is angry. He iss angry because he didn't know they never caught the guy who raped her. He's angry because bad things happen to good people and bad people get away with bad things and _life's not fair_ and boy does she know that.

"No."

"Fuck."

"Yeah. It was...it was awful. For a long, long time. I didn't have anyone to talk to, till Shizune. None of my friends would have believed me. My parents wouldn't have cared. And I was too...I don't know. Ashamed. I thought it was my fault. For a long time I blamed myself, and sometimes, if I'm having a rough day and it crosses my mind I blame myself again. So many should-have-done's and should-have-known's."

"It wasn't your fault." Sasuke's voice is harsher than normal, emphatic. It isn't judgment. It isn't too-bad-so-sad, it isn't pity or disgust or anything she had feared or dreaded seeing in him. It's acceptance, and it's so gut-wrenchingly beautiful that she wants to kiss him.

But she can't because that would complicate things, so she settles for throwing her arms around his neck.

And she _loves_ him. Oh, she loves him and she has nothing left to hide, except that fact.

Because Sasuke doesn't know she loves him. And it's one secret she will keep to herself forever.

xoxoxo

She's the bravest girl in the history of the world, and she's crying quietly into his shoulder and Sasuke's hands move automatically across the leather splayed on her back, his fingers twisting in the ends of her hair and her scent all around him, tinged with cigarettes and snow. He holds her because she needs to be held. She's told him her secrets. She isn't a liar anymore.

And he's still a coward.

Can he do what Sakura's done?

Can he rip himself open and show her what horrors he's kept locked inside? Can he taint her virgin eyes with his unworthiness? Can he look into the face of the bravest, prettiest, kindest girl in the world and tell her what a fuck-up he realy is?

It doesn't matter if he can. Sakura's done it already, so now he has to.

But he's choking on the words so he keeps his mouth shut for now. He's feeling more things at once than he thinks he's ever felt: admiration for Sakura's courage, and envy of it as well. Anger to hear of all the villains of her past. Guilt, irrational guilt, that he hadn't met her earlier in life, that he wasn't there for her during the years she surely needed him. And fear.

Fear.

Sakura conquered hers. He steels himself as Sakura draws away from his embrace, dries her tears and looks up at him in expectation. Here it is.

_Don't be a coward,_ he thinks, ignoring the racing of his heart. _For once in your life, don't be a coward._

It could save them, he thinks. It could save them forever if they can survive this discussion. If brutal honesty gives way to trust...it can be their salvation. Maybe. Maybe the story of Sasuke and Sakura isn't over at all. Maybe it's only beginning.

And hope fills him then. Hope is something he hasn't dared to entertain lately, but he's with Sakura, and it's like she's breathing life back into him and she's tearing him open and piecing him back together and what's left of Sasuke now? And he doesn't know but he'll find out, if it means he has another chance at 'us.'

"My family's dead," he murmurs. It's a cold hard fact, one he's pondered and dwelt upon and thought about so often that there's no accompanying emotion. Sakura's eyes soften, not in pity, not in sympathy, but something else, and it makes him love her more and it makes him keep going.

"They were all lawyers. It's what the Uchiha family's known for. Mob lawyers, mostly." He drops the filter of their cigarette on the ground and watches the embers turn black and die. "We're famous for it. People paid fortunes to hire our parents."

Sakura nods to show she's listening. He's fascinated by the curve of her slender neck and focuses on that, instead of his crushing fear.

"But they were corrupt." It hurts to admit that about his family, about his beloved mother and his respected father and all their uncles and aunts and grandparents. But it's _true,_ and this is about truth, this talk with Sakura. "And they pissed off the mob. Double dealing and shit."

He doesn't go into detail. It isn't necessary. Sakura's a smart girl.

"It was a hit job," Sasuke mutters. "They rigged the brakes on my dad's car. He drove home from the courthouse with my mom. The car blew up. There wasn't anything left."

"Oh my God," Sakura breathes, her hand over her mouth. "Sasuke..."

"They suspected my brother."

"Your brother? Why?"

"Itachi knew about my dad's involvement with the mob," Sasuke replies. "He knew there was bribery, extortion behind the scenes. It never sat right with him. He argued a lot with my dad. People knew there was bad blood...it was staged to look like Itachi did it."

"But he didn't...did he?"

"I thought he did." This is the scariest part because Sasuke's admitting his faults, his fuck-ups, his fears. He doesn't want to do this anymore but he knows he has to, if he is to save anything at all with Sakura. "I blamed him. I _hated_ him."

A pause. Sakura's silent.

"He never denied it. I spent years hating him, wanting him dead, wanting to do it myself...I thought he took my mom and dad away from me and I was too young and stupid to know why."

It's vulnerability. Something he's never been allowed to show, something he can't believe he's showing now, but Sakura's always been special that way. Making him feel things he didn't think he was capable of feeling till he'd felt them.

"We got into a fight."

The ugliest part of his life, and he's about to tell it to her.

"A fight?" she prompts gently, her fingers tracing through his hair lightly, absently, and it feels amazing.

"Right before senior year. He showed his face around me. I hadn't seen him in years. I was so angry. I loved him and I hated him and I wanted him dead and I accused him of killing our parents. I hit him. I punched him and I hoped he'd die. I wanted it. I wanted to kill him."

Sakura doesn't draw away from him. Even exposed to the deepest, darkest recesses of his soul, she doesn't recoil, doesn't run. Even if he thinks she should, she stays sitting on the bench beside him, her hand moving lightly through his hair while he tells her his nightmarish reality.

"I knocked him out. For a minute I thought he was dead. On my floor. I was happy. Sakura I was _happy._"

"It's all right," she breathes. "It's all right, Sasuke. Keep going."

Why isn't she running yet?

"He let me hit him. He barely fought back. And when he woke up, he told me he loved me. That he was sorry. And then he jumped out of the window."

Sakura gasps.

"What?"

"He let me kick the shit out of him. He let me think he was dead. And then he stood up, told me he loved me, and jumped out of my sixth-floor apartment window. Then he really _was _dead. And I wasn't happy anymore."

"Horrible," Sakura decides, shaking her head. Her fingers drop to his hand and she holds it tightly. "But...did he...did Itachi kill your parents? Was it true?"

"No," Sasuke murmurs. "He let me think it was because he never wanted me to find out what they were caught up in. Truth was, they were sold out...by our uncle, Uchiha Madara."

It sounds like a soap opera. A closeknit family of four, loving and happy on the surface. Then, tragedy strikes in the form of a traitorous relative hoping to destroy the security of their family forever. Suspicion. Wrongful accusation. Years of hate and mistrust breeding nothing but more hatred.

But it isn't a soap opera. It's Sasuke's life.

"I don't understand."

Well of course she doesn't. Sasuke barely understands himself, and he lives this shit day in and day out.

"Our uncle hated our family. We never knew why. Bad blood from years ago. But he sold them out to a mob family my dad had offended. Helped them rig the bomb that blew my parents half to hell.

"Itachi found out after. And what I didn't know was that he kept his mouth shut about it to protect me. Told Madara he would keep the truth about what happened a secret if I was left alone."

Tears finally spill from Sakura's beautiful green eyes as she hears the truth of Itachi's sacrifice for the first time. It's the reaction he never thought he'd receive: instant, immediate compassion.

And he loves her all over again.

"So everything Itachi did...it was all to protect you?"

"He let me hate him. He let me blame him and he let me hit him years later knowing I wanted him dead. And then he went and fucking killed himself hoping I'd never find out what he was doing for my benefit."

"Then...if Itachi didn't tell you...how did you find out?"

"Madara. He tried to turn me against my parents by telling me Itachi was protecting me from _them._ But I figured it out on my own.

"Sakura...I loved my brother. I loved him even when I hated him. He was...he was the best. And you have to believe me, I didn't know. I didn't know what was going on, he didn't tell me, see? And if i'd known...if I knew..."

Sasuke's aware he sounds like a frightened child, but he can't bring himself to stop. Because Sakura might feel like she's alone, confiding in the few people she's confided in, but Sasuke's never confided in _anyone._ In anyone alive, at least. He's spent tons of time confiding in the marble gravestones in the family plot.

But stone can't talk, and the lonely afternoons spent chatting up what remains of his family bring entirely new meaning to the term 'silent as the grave.'

Sakura's here, though. She's alive, beautifully so, with a heartbeat that races along with his own and eyes that show how his story's affecting her. And her hand grips his like warm iron. And she doesn't run away.

"Of course you didn't know," she whispers. "Oh Sasuke, of course you didn't. It's okay. It's okay that you felt that way. And Itachi knows that, too."

How can she say that? How can she look up at him with eyes full of acceptance and just _accept?_

Doesn't she see what he _is?_ He wanted to kill his own brother, tried to, even, and all Itachi ever did was look out for him. Itachi wanted to protect him from the reality of the family he loved and trusted, by shouldering the blame of their corruption so Sasuke could enjoy the illusion. How can she forgive him that?

How can he forgive himself?

It's started to snow, he realizes. There's a shimmer in Sakura's candy-colored hair, and some catches in her dark eyelashes and mixes with the tears she's shedding for him and for Itachi and a million other things and at least one of them can express themselves.

"You didn't know, Sasuke," she says softly. "You can't be blamed for what you thought and how you felt. You didn't know."

"Madara disappeared. No one's seen him since last year, at Itachi's funeral."

"The police know what he did, then?"

"Aa. Left behind evidence."

"Then...why did Itachi..."

"I only have theories," Sasuke mumbles, in reference to the motive behind Itachi's suicide. "But I think...he didn't want to see me become a killer."

Because Sasuke isn't quite sure what we would have done. He thinks back to the fight, and seeing Itachi's blood on his knuckles and revelling in the feeling that _this is justice._ He remembers beating Itachi to within an inch of his life, accusations and malediction and hatred in his soul. And he doesn't know if, in that haze of blind bloodlust, he would have finished what he started.

Could he have killed his brother?

He doesn't know.

And therein lies the darkness of Sasuke.

Not that he'd actually done it. But that he couldn't puzzle out if he actually would have. And that makes him evil. Unlovable. _Despicable._

And here's the part where Sakura runs, he's sure. Because he can't even say for sure he wouldn't have murdered the brother he admired more than any other human. And what the hell is a girl like her doing in the same _vicinity_ as a guy like him? How can she stomach it? How could she have allowed him to touch her, kiss her, sleep with her?

He's a fuck-up. A fuck-up who's studying to be a lawyer because he has to even though he doesn't like it and he doesn't know how to keep the only girl he's ever loved or if he even can. And there is the truth about Uchiha Sasuke.

So here's where she runs.

At least, here's where she's _supposed_ to run.

But Sakura's special. And stupid, apparently. And possibly crazy, because she presses a kiss to his cheek like he isn't filthy. And she smiles at him through her tears.

And she whispers, "It's okay."

It isn't okay, though. Sasuke knows that. He doesn't know if it's ever going to be okay again because nothing in his life has suggested it ever could be. He doesn't know if this, whatever this is, with Sakura, is an ending, or a beginning, or anything at _all._

But it's honesty. It's truth.

And he thinks (even if he won't say it) that he might be able to trust Sakura.

It's snowing now. Harder than before, but Sasuke's numb to everything but the girl who's resting her head against his shoulder. He watches lusty flakes settle on the deadlikehisfamily grass sprawling over the quad and there's no one else around and that's how he prefers it. Because he's with Sakura.

And even if he has to go back to Oto in a few days, even if they go back to their separate lives and whatever this is remains in the past...

She's here. And he's here. And that's as close to okay as he's ever been.

xoxoxo

**note..** Hey, strangers. :) Back from my honeymoon! Sorry to leave y'alls hanging, but Disney World with my husband (i'msoexcitedtocallhimthat) ain't no place to be thinkin' 'bout no secret anime addiction. I'm sure you understand.

Let me know what you think, per favore. Love youuu Hope you had a week as slammin as mine! lovelovelove


	24. Aftershock

"Sasuke." She's trying because this might be her only chance. "Why...why did you leave."

She feels him stiffen and knows she's struck a nerve, but this discussion is about honesty. And she honestly doesn't know, and she feels that, a year later, she deserves to.

He runs a hand uncomfortably through his hair, shaking out snowflakes that continue to settle diamondwhite against inky black, and he doesn't shrug her off his shoulder but she gets the feeling he doesn't want to talk to her anymore.

"Lot of reasons," he answers vaguely.

Sakura sits up and glares at him. "That's a shit answer."

Wrong approach, apparently, because Sasuke's eyes narrow combatively. She tries again, relaxing her angry expression into one she hopes is calm and patient and gentle, even though she's angry and impatient and near-violent.

"Come on," she coaxes. "I wondered...I wondered why, for so so long and I still don't know."

Sasuke pauses before muttering, "I didn't trust you."

"I know you didn't." It comes out as a gusty, resigned sigh. "But I promise you I never did anything with any other guy while we were together. I never would do that."

"I know. But we were secretive, Sakura. I didn't trust you. I thought you were pregnant."

Her eyes widen. "_What?_"

"Aa."

"HOW? Sasuke, I was on birth control, still am...every time we used a con-"

"I know," he repeats, looking even more displaced, like it takes all the reluctance in the world to say what he says next. "I didn't think it was mine."

It takes her a moment to absorb that. Her first thought is shock; her next thought is anger. And she hopes it doesn't bleed through in her voice because they're trying for catharsis here and that means telling each other Bad Things.

"I thought you were sleeping around," Sasuke mutters. "So I checked your laptop. It was on a pregnancy website. Since we were so careful...I didn't think it'd be my kid."

"I never did anything," Sakura says, and it sounds colder than she wants it to, but she's offended, damn it. Sasuke invented a story in his head with absolutely no foundation in reality, and because of that, she had her heart broken. "Not a thing, with any other guy."

"What else was I supposed to think?" Sasuke snaps. Apparently he's picked up on the hostility in her voice. "You never told me anything. Every guy on campus was trying to get with you at the time. Then I see you looking up pregnancy tips and hiding it from me?"

"It was for Ino!" Sakura almost yells. "She told me, only me, at the beginning and I _wasn't supposed to tell anyone!_ I told you I'd tell you when I could but that it wasn't my secret to share!"

"Sakura I know. I know that now."

"You should've known then!"

There's a bitter, biting silence after that. Sakura folds her arms tightly and tries to rein in her emotions, but that's always been hard for her, and especially when Sasuke's involved. She's getting the answers she wanted for so long, and each one is more unlikely than the last. All the holes are being filled in and in such outlandish ways, she sort of wishes she hadn't asked the question in the first place.

"Was that the only reason you left? I feel like you could've broken up with me and stayed at Konoha, if it was just an issue of trust. What made you go all the way to Oto?"

If she didn't know Sasuke so well, she wouldn't have been able to pinpoint his discomfort. But she does know Sasuke so well, and her eyes are drawn immediately to the taut line of his jaw, his stiff shoulders, the way he isn't blinking and isn't looking in her direction, like the snow gathering on the ground is way more fascinating.

"I was distracted," Sasuke reveals. "A lot of it I blamed on you. But I'm supposed to be a lawyer. And when I was here, it was easy to forget that."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't." Sasuke's voice is full of acrimony. "You can decide your future. You're becoming a doctor because you want to. My future was forced onto me."

"That's a copout." Sakura's really trying to keep her temper with Sasuke but it is _not_ working. "I knew you hated your major, I knew this was never your passion all this time. So why stick with it if it's not what you want?"

"My family was _ruined_ by scandal," Sasuke snaps. "Everything they ever worked for was destroyed once the truth came out about them. My parents were killed. My brother committed suicide. My uncle was implicated for murder and on the run. Years of repute, wasted.

"I'm all that's left of my family now. When I become a lawyer, I'll do it right. I won't get involved with what my dad was involved in. And I'll fix our reputation."

Sakura certainly sympathizes with Sasuke's motives. He's in this to redeem his family name. A noble cause, to be sure.

But not the right thing to do.

"Sasuke you're right. You're all that's left of the Uchiha family. But why should that mean they decide what you do with your life? Wouldn't they want you to be happy? You've boxed yourself into this future you're living for other people...what about what _you_ want?"

xoxoxo

Sakura's words are grating and frustrating and naive and ignorant and _they make him think._

That's always been her problem, Sasuke thinks. For all the darkness of her past and all her alleged worldliness, she still sees the world through rose-colored glasses. She believes in happily-ever-after and doing what makes you happy. She believes in overcoming the chains that tie us down into who we are, and becoming what we might be.

And Sasuke can't live in a world like that.

His family was stolen from him ten years ago. He's spent those years cultivating a burning ambition, allowing it to consume him until not only had he forgotten his own desires, he no longer even knew what they were anymore. There was nothing he wanted selfishly, nothing he sought for himself, nothing he had the naivete and hope and resolve to desire.

And then he met Sakura and she changed everything he thought he knew.

And he knows that she'll be his downfall, if she isn't already. The chink in his armor, his Achilles heel. Apart from her, he has no weaknesses. He is a law student, best in his class at Oto, full of promise and resolve and he has direction.

With her?

He doesn't know what or who he is. What he's becoming. What he'll be tomorrow. She has him thinking of a future that isn't spelled out for him. She has him thinking of his own dreams and weighing the risks of pursuing them (once he remembers what they are.)

She's changing him without meaning to, without realizing it.

And what happens then? When she's broken him down, shattered his resolve, inspired him to fulfill his own destiny? What happens when there's nothing left of Uchiha Sasuke other than who he wants to be?

He can't let her do this. He can't let her shatter the foundation he's built his life upon. This was never about doing what made him happy.

(If it was, he would never have left Konoha. If it was, he would never have left Sakura. If it was, he would stay here now that he's here already, and never go back to Oto.)

But Sasuke thinks of Uchiha Fugaku, his esteemed father, his memory tarnished by the foulness of his choices while alive. He thinks of his kind, beautiful mother, and can't bear to think that she's guilty as well. And he thinks of Itachi, who lived and died to ensure Sasuke never learned the dark truth about his parents, to ensure that he remained blissfully ignorant as long as he could, and trust in the prestige of the Uchiha name.

But he's all that's left of Uchiha. He shoulders the burden of dishonor and the ambition for redemption. It's all on him.

Which means he has no time for his own dreams. He must let them go.

And if it includes pretty pink-haired doctors-to-be (soulmates) then so be it.

Sakura's frustrating like that. She has the nerve to tempt him with everything he ever wanted (selfishly) and look up at him with big green eyes flecked gold in the middle, her flower-pink lips pouty and her hair falling just so, and she's heavenly and too beautiful to be real.

_And he can't have her._

"Sasuke." It's been a few moments since she's spoken. She looks sad, disappointed even, and he wonders if maybe she can read his thoughts. "The Uchiha family's past rests with you, but so does its future. Don't forget that. Okay?"

Has she not been listening?

Abruptly, he's angry with her. He's been spilling his heart to her all this time and she doesn't even have the decency to comprehend what he's saying. _All he's about is the future of Uchiha._

"It's up to you," she continues, "to make Uchiha into what you want it to mean."

He's going to strangle her, she isn't listening, she isn't hearing him, she's repeating what he already knows-

"And that maybe," she finishes, eyes bright and she's _tempting_, "that means redefining Uchiha altogether."

Oh.

"Sasuke there's more to you than Uchiha," Sakura breathes. "It isn't my place to tell you what to do next. I think you've had enough of that in your life so far. You have to do what you think is best, and that's for you to decide. Not me. Not your family. Not Naruto or any of the others. But it would break my heart to know you gave up the amazing person you are to chase a dream you never wanted in the first place."

And Sasuke can't even think. Because Sakura says that, drops that bomb on him and all he can do is sit there as she presses a sweet, innocent kiss to the corner of his mouth. Then she stands up and murmurs something and he doesn't know what it is, and then she turns away from him and heads back inside the building.

Downfall. Weakness. Destruction.

Sakura is all of that to him.

His eyes trace long legs and slim hips and the pendulum motion of pink hair moving back and forth as she walks. It's impossible to pretend she isn't electrifying, arousing. It's impossible to tell him he doesn't _want her_ in every way there is to want a woman.

Can he let her become his Achilles heel?

Can he drag her into a world of corruption and deceit and kin-killers and liars and thieves?

The more appropriate question, he muses, the phantom memory of her featherkiss lingering on his skin, is can he ever leave her alone?

He doesn't know.

He doesn't think so.

xoxoxo

It's late now, and Sakura takes a shower because she has nothing better to do.

She goes through the motions mechanically. First she washes her face. Then she lathers shampoo into her hair, rinses, repeats. Then she smooths conditioner through the rebellious strands, washes the rest of her body, runs a razor quickly over her legs, rinses out the conditioner.

She tries not to think about the things she's just learned.

_I thought I was ready to hear what he had to say,_ she thinks, as she turns off the tap and grabs a fluffy white towel and wraps it around herself. She looks at her face, flushed from the heat of the water, in the mirror, and sees her stress reflected back at her. _But everything about Sasuke is a tragedy. And he's resigned himself to it._

He won't fight back, she realizes. He'll let her go again. He'll turn his back on Konoha, on all of his friends, on a future he might actually enjoy, and return to the shadows of Oto because in his mind, he owes it to his past. He's a slave to redemption, but he doesn't even know what redemption is.

Abruptly, she decides she hates his family. Her eyes narrow as she tries to picture people she's never seen before, as she curses them with everything she has. She hates them as hard as she can. She hates them for making Sasuke the wonderful boy she fell in love with, but programming him to clean up the mess they made. She hates them for taking him away from her, for knowing that she was never, ever first in his heart, and all because of them.

Sakura looks in the mirror again and is startled by what she sees. Green eyes narrowed, red-rimmed in anger, her mouth curled into a snarl that looks more animal than human. Her wet hair wild, her cheeks flushed, she almost can't recognize the person she sees looking back at her.

She can't do this.

She can't give in to her anger and her hatred; she can't succumb to her hurt, not over Sasuke, not again.

She doesn't need him, not like she thought she did, once upon a time. This separation taught her that she can and will take care of herself. She's successful, she's a good student and a good friend and a good godmother. She's everything she was with Sasuke, without him.

Even if she loves him, she knows she won't be able to stop him, and all that's left to do is prepare for the goodbye, and hope that maybe there _is_ one this time.

So she bleeds her heart of its bitterness. Sasuke's had this twisted bond with his family his entire life.

It was foolish of her to think he might let it go in favor of her.

xoxoxo

Sasuke doesn't head back to Naruto's room. He needs to process what he and Sakura discussed.

It's a mindless sort of nomadic wandering, then, as he moves through the snow towards he-doesn't-know-where. He doesn't care either. It's easy to pretend that all there is to think about is his next footstep.

His next move, however, remains elusive.

He's torn in a thousand different directions, each thought in his head begging for his attention, and there's so much to think about that he can't even begin to know where to start.

He hates Sakura's family, he decides. That much, at least, he's sure about, and Sasuke's always been very, very good at hating. He hates her father-who-he's-never-seen, and thinks about Sakura's career-ending knee injury and wants to mete out the same to her father. He hates her mother-who-he's-never-seen for feeding Sakura the entirely-unfounded insecurities she's been choking on for as long as he's known her.

It's easy to process that revelation: he hates her family.

Sasuke thinks about her rapist, next. And he hates him, too, probably more than he hates anyone, except maybe his uncle Madara. He thinks about how the bastard was never caught. He thinks about how Sakura's had to endure the horror of what happened alone, while he escaped without penalty. He thinks about how there is no justice in the world _at all._

So he hates her family and he hates her rapist.

Then he thinks about the scar on her neck. Before knowing the twisted truth behind it, he'd assumed it was relic of the night she was raped, given to her by the man who raped her. He hates the reality of what it is even more: evidence that Sakura was not always as strong as she is now, evidence that she'd been so tortured by her reality that she would have done anything to escape it.

So he hates her family and her rapist and he hates Sakura, too, for ever thinking the world would be able to spin properly on its axis without her.

Even when he was in Oto, he was comforted by the fact that Haruno Sakura existed _somewhere,_ that she was alive to smile and laugh and joke and tease and comfort. The thought of living in a world without her in it is unimaginable and _how could she even think she could kill herself?_

When Sasuke looks up next, he is standing in front of the building Shikamaru and Ino and their kid live in.

He does not remember how he came to be here, but it's a fucking sign, maybe, so he heads up the slippery steps automatically and knocks on the door.

Ino answers, holding the baby on her hip, and she doesn't look surprised to see him. Sasuke's eyes are drawn to the baby-whose-name-escapes-him, and finds that she's staring at him with surprising astuteness for a four-month-old. Blue eyes as penetrating and omniscient as Sakura's green eyes are scan him straight through, and he wonders if this little sausage of a human can see how mangled he is on the inside, and then Ino speaks.

"Come in, it's freezing," she says, ushering him inside. He follows automatically, his eyes locked on the baby, who Ino suddenly shoves into his arms. "Here, take Hana, I'll go get you something hot to drink, you look frozen."

Sasuke doesn't have time to protest before he's holding Hana, cradling her with all the awkwardness of a boy holding a baby for the first time: panicking and hoping he doesn't drop her and it's probably uncomfortable for her but why isn't she crying?

She's not crying. Instead, she giggles a little and places a grubby, sticky hand to his cheek and squeals.

Sasuke's stunned. He can't move, his arms locked around Hana so she doesn't fall, and she's laughing like he's her favorite person in the world, and Ino returns from the kitchen a few minutes later with a cup of coffee in her hands.

"She likes you," Ino observes, before rolling her eyes. "Makes sense, seeing how she's Sakura in miniature. She likes Sakura best, which, as her mother, I resent, but since I like Sakura best, too, I guess I get it a little bit."

Sasuke knows he came to the right place, he realizes, as he hands back Hana and takes the coffee instead. He's come to a person who loves Sakura maybe as much as he does, who has her best interests at heart and who will tell him exactly what she thinks of the situation. And that's what Sasuke needs now, a little fucking direction.

He never thought he'd come to Yamanaka Ino for that.

xoxoxo

**note..** Hi!


	25. Clarity

Ino holds her baby as she sits across from Sasuke. The chair he's sitting in is hard and uncomfortable, and when he looks at the other chairs around the table, he sees they are all mismatched, clearly secondhand. The apartment she's living in with Shikamaru is cheap, then, along with their furniture, a couch that's missing some of its stuffing, worn throw pillows that don't match anything, including each other, a table cloth with a vase of flowers almost completely hiding a coffee stain.

Sasuke wonders if this is the kind of place he might've gotten with Sakura, this starter apartment.

He derails that train of thought, though, because it just confuses him more. He's so set on leaving her behind, but he can't stop thinking about a future with her. Why does it seem like all roads lead him right back to where he started?

"Ino," he says flatly, and he runs a hand through his snow-wet hair in stress. "There's so much about Sakura that I don't know, and so much about her that you know without even trying. What the hell does she want from me?"

Ino's eyes narrow. Her grip around Hana becomes marginally tighter. Sasuke prepares himself for the onslaught because he knows that even if he won't like what Ino has to say, she won't pull punches. She'll tell him what's what. She'll answer questions he hasn't even thought about asking and that's _exactly_ what he needs right now.

"That's between you two," she sniffs haughtily. "Sakura hasn't told me what she wants from you. She barely said a word about you after you left, and why should she waste the breath? You didn't even tell her why you were leaving."

It stings. But it stings the way it feels when you pour antiseptic into a recent wound: like relief is soon to follow.

"I won't waste your time and mine, telling you what a remorseless asshole you are for what you did to her," Ino continues. "But you didn't break her, Sasuke. Sakura's not the kind to break, not even when you do the shitty things you did to her…she put herself together. I couldn't have had this baby without her, you should've seen the way she came through for me."

Hana giggles on cue, and tries to stuff her little hand into her mouth; Ino bats it away automatically and plants an adoring kiss on her daughter's shiny blonde curls.

"I thought Sakura was pregnant," Sasuke reveals, watching baby Hana. He tries to redo her face, her eyes, her hair, with Sakura's features in mind, and maybe his as well. Black hair would have dominated pink, but he thinks her green eyes would have come through in a child. He knows already this magic baby would have been beautiful.

"So you left?" Ino scoffs, telling him with a roll of her eyes _exactly_ what she thinks of that. "That's great. What if she had been?"

"I didn't think it was mine," Sasuke sighs. There's no reason to lie, to pull punches with Ino because she won't do that with him. Even if his twisted belief system sounds so pathetic now the more he vocalizes it.

"I see. So you figured Sakura was pregnant, decided that, as her boyfriend, it _couldn't be yours,_ and without even _asking_ her about it, you rolled out without even a word, never mind knowing she's been on birth control since high school?"

Sasuke pinches the bridge of his nose. How could he have done something so stupid?

"But let's not pretend that's the only reason you left," Ino presses. "Face it, Sasuke. You were scared about what your relationship with Sakura was turning into."

Sasuke freezes. What the hell is she talking about? His eyes narrow inquisitively.

"I grew up with you, idiot," she reminds him coldly. "I know all about the shit with your family. Maybe not everything," she amends quickly, seeing the way his gaze becomes murderous, "but I know how much you want to please them. It was your whole motivation back in high school and it's your whole motivation now. And you weren't expecting to meet someone like Sakura, but you did. And that wasn't in your plan, was it?"

"Hn."

Ino looks satisfied as she rocks a sleepy Hana in her arms. Even though she's a new mother, she's lost none of her fiery spirit, none of her energy, and Sasuke begrudgingly admires this frustrating young woman, and wonders how much Sakura contributed to her success.

"I know you, Sasuke. I know you didn't bother with girls in high school and no one thought you'd bother with them in college but you never counted on meeting Sakura, and she blew all your preconceived notions about relationships right to hell. And I _get it,_ because I never thought I'd meet a girl like Sakura either. I never thought I'd find a friend so wonderful, so amazing in a place like Konoha University but I did and that's what makes us different: that didn't scare me."

"Don't pretend it's the same thing," Sasuke snaps, speaking in his own defense for the first time. "Sakura's your friend. She's never been just that to me."

"Oh so what?" Ino shoots back, impatient. "Men are such babies. You and I both know what Sakura means to you, you don't need me to spell it out for you. You're in love with her. It's like she was designed specifically for you, to help you become a better person and she needed you around, too, to get her through her own shit. And being so attached to a person scared you, so you jumped ship at the first hiccup and you broke her heart and yours and I _do not feel sorry for you._"

Sasuke never thought of it in these terms. Was he really _intimidated_ by his connection with Sakura? Was that the motivation for his leaving, the catalyst to their relationship coming apart at the seams?

Perhaps trust didn't play as big a part in their demise as he'd originally thought. Perhaps it was his own cowardice, his fear of attachment, that led to their destruction.

"I think the split was good for you both," Ino says quietly, and he looks up at her in surprise. "I'm not saying I loved the idea. But it taught Sakura to stand up on her own, and take charge of her own life because there's no guarantee you'll have anyone but yourself when the chips are down. She's acing all her classes and she's popular and everyone loves her and I couldn't have had Hana without her.

"And it taught you to miss the things you never thought you'd miss. Sasuke I don't know how badly your head's fucked up because of your family, maybe I'll never know. But they're dead. Okay? They're dead and they can't control you anymore. Do you really think they would have wanted you to be unhappy?"

He's reminded of Sakura's words to him earlier, her sadness that he was not pursuing his own happiness, her conviction that he was his own person without Uchiha, her belief that he should do what makes him happy, rather than what satisfies the nonexistent demands of a family that's been dead for years.

And he sees that this whole time, even though she's never said it, Sakura's loved him the right way. She's loved him unselfishly, without any expectation besides his own happiness in mind. She's wanted nothing but the best for him.

And he's loved her all wrong.

What's the best thing for Sakura?

Can he even answer that anymore?

Could he have _ever_ answered that with any measure of conviction?

"She loved you," Ino murmurs. "She loved you as much as she can, and when that wasn't enough, she loved you even more. The question is do you love her enough to fight for her?"

"What do you mean by that."

"Your relationship was intense. Still is. And it was never going to be easy. Sakura was willing to fight for it because she sees something in you that nobody else does, something worth fighting for. You turned tail and ran the second things got too real. And Sakura didn't deserve that. You hurt her and you hurt yourself and the question is, are you going to do it again?"

xoxoxo

Naruto doesn't look surprised when Sakura knocks on his door. He's one of her boys, after all, and maybe she doesn't give him enough credit. Maybe she doesn't really appreciate how well he knows her.

He doesn't look surprised to see tears streaming from her eyes in rivers and smearing her makeup and her hair's a mess and she's disheveled and she can barely articulate the thoughts running rampant through her head, and what comes out is, "Did he _ever_ love me?"

Naruto takes her hand in his own and pulls her inside. He closes the door behind her, sits her on the edge of his bed, and hands her a tissue. He sits beside her and wraps a comforting arm around her shoulders and she cries and cries and he lets her, because she needs to.

Then he replies, "He never stopped."

But Sakura doesn't understand. Because if Sasuke loved her, he wouldn't have left, right? He wouldn't have left for a whole year, right? He wouldn't have put her through this if he loved her, if he ever loved her at all.

"Sasuke's the dumbest person on the planet," Naruto continues wistfully. "He's too stupid to see what he really wants, and too scared to fight for it. That's always been his problem. I thought he'd get over himself when he met you, but he didn't. But that doesn't mean he won't, Sakura. Don't give up on him."

"Why not?" she sobs, gripping the tissue so hard it tears. "Why shouldn't I let him go? He let me go before. I know he's going to do it again. Why do I have to hang onto something that he doesn't even care about?"

She's coming apart at the seams, she realizes, seconds from a complete emotional breakdown. The discussion with Sasuke did nothing but open wounds she'd sloppily stitched together months before without healing first. She wants him to stay, more than she's ever wanted anything. She wants him to be happy, even if that happiness doesn't include her, and he's making all the wrong choices.

She can't save him from his own ambition.

At this rate, Sasuke will become the best lawyer in the country. He will win every case and he will earn fame and wealth and success; his family name will be redeemed. And at the end of it, he will have nothing _but_ that name. He will have thrown away his friendships, his heart. He will have discarded all the things that make him Sasuke, and retain only the things that make him Uchiha.

The person she loves will cease to exist.

It's already starting.

How can Sakura halt this process? How can she shake some sense into him, that there is more to life than pleasing a family that's _gone?_ How can she show him that he's worth everything, that there is happiness in his future if he will just reach out and accept it?

He won't fight for her. He won't even fight for himself.

What else is there to do, but let go?

"Don't give up on him, Sakura," Naruto says firmly. He pulls back and looks at her, and his sunny blue eyes are serious, almost stormy. There's no lingering mirth in the tanned contours of his face, nothing but sternness that borders on severity. She's never seen this look before.

"He needs you. He's loved you since he met you but Sasuke doesn't know how to love the right way. You can't let go of him now.

"You can't let go of him ever."

xoxoxo

It's dawn when Sasuke meets Sakura in the middle of campus.

She hasn't slept. It's obvious in the tired lines under her red-rimmed eyes. Sasuke feels more dead than alive until he looks at her, and even in her exhaustion, she is beautiful.

He's walking from Ino's, full of new perspective and new questions and new answers. And he isn't sure where _she's_ walking from, but he thinks that maybe she's been looking for him, because there is almost relief in her too-green eyes when they fall on his face.

She's wearing sweatpants and a hoodie that he thinks belongs to him, or at least it did, once upon a time, her tiny dancer's feet stuffed into snow boots. Her hair is curly and wild and she looks cold, and she is far and away the most beautiful girl in the world, framed like color itself against a snowy white backdrop. And he thinks, _How could I have left you?_ And he thinks _How could I leave you again?_

xoxoxo

It's dawn when Sakura meets Sasuke in the middle of campus.

He hasn't slept. His face is paler than usual, dark circles under his dark eyes and fringed by his dark hair. And there's vulnerability in his eyes, a rare, fleeting vulnerability that makes her love him even more.

She's been looking for him. Because Sasuke's one of her boys but so is Naruto, and Naruto tells her not to give up on Sasuke, and she has to listen to that, because she loves her boys equally, just in different ways. She doesn't know where he's coming from, doesn't know where he's been, as he emerges from the snowy dawn like the ghost of her scariest nightmares and fondest memories.

He looks absurdly handsome, tall and dark and strong, in his jeans and jacket with the snow all around him. He's looking at her like she's the key to all the mysteries of life, and she drinks him in with her eyes like she'll never see him again, and maybe she won't. And she thinks, _Why did you leave me?_ And she thinks, _Don't ever leave me again._

xoxoxo

And Sasuke moves closer.

xoxoxo

And so does Sakura.

xoxoxo

The world is silent. The world is empty, except for them. The snow vanishes, the light vanishes. There is nothing for miles and years except for Sasuke and Sakura.

For a moment, they stare. Somehow this moment is significant, this quiet tumult that brews between them like a hurricane. For a moment, Sasuke drinks in pink hair and soft skin and green eyes that have always been _too_ green, _too_ full. For a moment, Sakura commits black hair and black eyes to memory, revels in the scent and look and presence of the broken boy she loved and still loves and will love tomorrow more than she loves him today.

Just for a moment.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," he says.

Then there is Sakura's arms around his neck. And Sasuke's hands on her back, in her hair. There are no more words, though, no words because words have always, always failed them, and this moment is too important to fail.

There's new life there, life in the dead of winter, among the ashes of a relationship that seemed just another college casualty. There's Sasuke's lips pressed to the crown of pink hair, and a soft sigh of exhausted relief. The world is a world away and there's only old love and new trust and hope forever.

Sasuke can't leave Sakura.

And Sakura can't give up on Sasuke.

And Naruto was right.

**note..** Almost done with this one :)

Please don't favorite/alert without reviewing. I used to do that, too. It's lame.


	26. Hope

ONE WEEK LATER

"I'm afraid I must've heard you wrong." Orochimaru's salacious smirk turns Sasuke's stomach, but he's here in this shithole Oto University office for a reason. "What do you mean, you're transferring back to _Konoha?_"

He spits the name of Sasuke's former (and soon-to-be current) university like a swear. He looks at Sasuke from behind his desk, with beady, serpentine eyes that see too much and not enough when they look at him, and his lip curls into a sneer.

Sasuke doesn't flinch.

"I'll need my credits transferred by the start of spring term," he replies coolly.

He does not like being back in Oto, even if he is just here to collect his things from his room and arrange to be enrolled back at Konoha University for the spring. After experiencing rebirth with his old friends and his best girl, the atmosphere at Oto is even more repellant than it used to be.

It's barren, even in its warmth. His classmates are social climbers, shrewd and hostile, vicious and each one will stab his best friend in the back to move forward. It is a harsh, lonely place, and now that he's seen Naruto and Sakura and the rest, he wonders how he could have survived, even _thrived_ in an environment like this.

But no more. It's over. All that's left is to rebuild.

"Surely you must be joking, boy," Orochimaru chuckles. The sound is oily, and Sasuke is repulsed. "You left that festering wasteland after only one semester, and here, I have provided you with your own path to success. Think of what you could accomplish, under my tutelage!"

"I've thought about it." Sasuke's voice is cold now as he shoulders his backpack more securely and slams his student transfer forms on the desk of his advisor.

He turns and heads to the door, and is stopped by Orochimaru's seemingly-innocuous question.

"Is she pretty, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke is frozen then, one hand on the doorknob, the other clenching into a fist around the strap of his backpack. He has never hated Orochimaru as much in the year he's known him.

"The girl you're throwing your future away for," Orochimaru continues, and Sasuke's eyes narrow. "She must be a vision, to have tempted even the infamous Uchiha Sasuke from the path his family set forth for him. I wonder how they would feel, knowing that their only remaining heir is squandering his unique opportunity for success to play house with a college coed."

Sasuke turns back to his old mentor with dark eyes full of fire. Orochimaru looks unafraid, unaffected, even amused by this latest turn of events. And Sasuke knows there can be no life for him in Oto, that everything that makes life worth living resides back in Konoha.

"I'm not only Uchiha," he murmurs quietly, but his voice carries throughout Orochimaru's office.

"I'm Sasuke."

And the smirk is wiped clean from Orochimaru's face. And Sasuke has delivered the transfer forms to him and there is nothing left to say. The door closes behind him and it closes on Orochimaru, on ambition at any cost, and every wasted moment he spent away from the ones he never stopped loving.

xoxoxo

Sakura finds herself in a familiar place: the library, the quiet section, books opened in front of her and she is terrified, because it is Finals Week and Sakura allowed herself to be so in love with Sasuke that her studies were plumb forgotten.

But premed waits for no man.

So while Sasuke is making transfer arrangements back in Oto, she has isolated herself here and is determined to learn all she can of blood types and cellular division and chromosomal abnormalities to make up for the week she spent with stars in her eyes instead of a textbook.

And part of her is choking on her own happiness, but she quiets that half of her down. School is important. Learning is important. Finals are important. A 3.75 GPA is required for her major. A 4.0 is required from Tsunade.

Busy, busy, busy. Studying always, always learning, but can you begrudge her this distraction?

She can't fight the smile that threatens at the corners of her mouth, and it's the smile Naruto sees when he sits down across from her.

"Hey, Sakura-chan," he says with a grin.

"Naruto!" She is surprised to see him. She has never, in the year she's known him, seen him set foot into the library. He looks extraordinarily out of place. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking in on one of my favorite girls, is that so wrong?" he returns, with a teasing grin.

"In a library?" she returns skeptically, and he laughs.

"Okay, you got me. I just wanted to gloat a little bit. Told you I'd get him to come back!"

Sakura blushes. "I…I know you did. Naruto I really don't know how I can thank you. I didn't think he'd ever come back."

"Wish I could take all the credit," Naruto replies, his voice carrying in the silent library and attracting a fair amount of negative attention from the library and other students. For once, though, Sakura doesn't care what everyone's thinking when they look over. "But you know it was you, too."

"I hope he did it for himself," Sakura presses, ignoring her books again. "I hope it wasn't just for us, Naruto. I hope it was his own choice. I really think he can be happy someday, you know? If he's doing what he loves. If he figures out what he loves."

"Sasuke's only ever loved two things in his life," Naruto says flatly. "Baseball, and you. And the only place he can have both is right here. So if he ain't happy here, he ain't gonna be happy anywhere."

Sakura is scarlet. She doesn't want to ask this next part but she does, because she shouldn't be afraid of hearing the truth.

"Do you…Naruto do you really think he loves me?"

Naruto laughs again. "Of course he does. And everyone says you're the smart one!"

It's hard not to feel confident with Naruto around. He shines, he just _shines_ and it's impossible to doubt anything he says. Even if what he's saying is as blissfully inconceivable as 'Sasuke loves you.'

It's too good to be true, but so is Naruto, so is Sasuke, so is Ino, so is college. So maybe, Sakura thinks, in the privacy of her own mind that isn't such a dark and scary place lately, maybe it isn't too good at all.

Maybe it's just true.

Naruto stays and chatters with her and it's background noise to her studying, and all the while her heart plays a song that sounds like moments with Sasuke and she thinks she's never been so happy. Never been so hopeful.

And it's beautiful.

* * *

Orochimaru isn't happy, Sasuke knows, as he pulls into his preferred parking space at the Konoha University student lot. He isn't happy, and he probably won't let this go. Sasuke's the jewel of his collection after all. And Orochimaru isn't known for his ability to share.

There will be problems ahead now, because of his sudden transfer. But he will face them head on, because for the first time in a very long time, Sasuke knows he's in the right place.

He carries a bag of his things over his shoulder inside the building. Up the stairs to the fourth floor, last room at the end of the hall. He opens the door with the key that still works hanging from his keychain and steps inside.

Naruto isn't there.

Sakura is.

He's surprised to see her but not as surprised as he feels he should be. She's smiling at him, a gorgeous smile that he hasn't seen for awhile, and sitting on his stripped bed with a textbook in her hands.

"Hey handsome," she says sweetly, invoking his old nickname and she's _beautiful_ with that unafraid happiness shining in verdant green eyes.

He feels like he's home now, in this cramped little room. Home is chipped paint on well-worn walls and the smell of stale ramen and old socks. Home is half a room covered with trash and clothes and papers, the other half empty and waiting to be refilled.

Home is a girl who is stupid to love him the way she does. Home is a girl he loves back, and ten times harder.

"I wanted to be here when you got back," she says.

A smirk lifts his lips and he drops the bag unceremoniously on the floor. In an instant, Sakura hops off his bed and her arms wrap around his neck like vices and she whispers in his ear, "I missed you," and she whispers, "Welcome home," and she whispers, "I love you."

She's never said it to him before.

"Aa," he mumbles back.

"I missed you, too." _I love you, too._ "Annoying girl." _I always did._ He kisses her forehead. _I always will._

FOUR MONTHS LATER

It's Movie Night.

Well, it's _technically_ Movie Night. Actually, it's Philadelphia vs. New York in the season opener and that means everyone's in Sakura's single room yelling and screaming and arguing and man does it feel good to have everyone back!

Naruto surveys the room with a grin. Ino sits on the floor with Baby Hana crawling around in front of her, Shikamaru pretending to sleep on Sakura's beanbag chair but really keeping an eye on his daughter, the only thing he's not lazy enough to ignore. In the corner are Karin and Suigetsu, reconciling after their most recent three-day breakup in ways that Naruto questions are appropriate in the presence of a baby, but no one wants to get caught in the crossfire.

Then there's Neji, his arm around Tenten, who is loudly cheering New York even though she doesn't understand baseball, she just picked the team with the cutest first baseman. Beside her is Hinata-chan, Naruto's girlfriend, come to visit for the weekend, since she'll be attending here in the fall like everyone else. She's sitting in Sakura's desk chair, and is already one of the group, and beaming because of it.

Naruto grins at her and glances around again. There's Kiba, who cheers for Philadelphia in between texting his new flavor of the month girlfriend everyone teases him for. And Chouji's eating chips like they're going out of style and Shino's forgettable in the corner and someone let Lee drink, so he's out cold on the plush carpet, while Sai, sketchbook in hand, draws the scene.

Then there's Sasuke and Sakura.

They're on the bed together, backs against the wall as they sit side by side. They're arguing, loudly, in fact Naruto doesn't think he's ever heard Sasuke say so much at such a volume ever before. Sakura tells him he's a cheat and a fraud and a bandwagoner and a scumbag for rooting for New York. He shoots back and lets her know how obnoxious Philadelphia is and their no-talent farm system will be the death of them and they don't have a _chance_ at the World Series.

But Naruto couldn't be happier. Because fighting is flirting, and Sasuke and Sakura have been going strong for months now. And when they think no one's looking, Sasuke drops a quick kiss to Sakura's temple, and she looks up at him like he's sunshine and stars.

It'd be sickening, if it wasn't so amazing.

They've come far. A long way to go, still. Sasuke's still an asshole and Sakura's still dramatic, and they're a volatile combination. Naruto knows that better than anybody.

But they're also soulmates.

Naruto's known that since Day One. Since he met Sakura-chan the first day of college, since he'd helped her move her TV and worked his way into her circle of best friends.

Since the first time he saw Teme look at her with narrowed, mistrustful eyes. Since the first time she smiled up at Teme and it wasn't fake. Since the first moment he stood with Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura and they introduced themselves and he fucking _knew._

And that's how Naruto knows they're gonna be okay. Not okay, even, but great. They're gonna be Sasuke and Sakura, they're gonna be married someday and have a bunch of cute asshole kids and they're gonna be as happy forever as they are now.

So he sits back against Hinata's legs and takes a handful of popcorn and drowns in the music of friendship, of true love gone right and baseball on TV and nothing but hope on the horizon.

END

**Note..** That wraps up Horizon! Thank you so much for your support of this story, it's based partly on things I've done and been through so to hear it so positively received, is just amazing. I absolutely love you guys.

And to answer the question: yes, there will be a sequel. So if you feel like there are a lot of loose ends, there are, and for a reason. Kiba, Orochimaru, Madara, Sakura's parents, etc…all of that will be addressed and more next time in my new story. Look for it this week!

Thank you all so, so much. You're amazing.

Love always,

Daisy Jane :)


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